Seedstars World has picked nine early-stage Zimbabwean startups to take part in its Harare event, where they will compete to represent the country at the Seedstars Summit in Switzerland and win up to US$1 million in equity investment.
Seedstars World is back on the road following the culmination of the last edition of the competition in April, with African winners having already been named in Egypt and Tunisia.
The Zimbabwean leg of the global early-stage startups competition takes place on June 29 at Impact Hub Harare, with nine startups having been picked to pitch for the chance to follow last year’s representative, bus-booking solution myRunner, in heading to the global final.
The selected startups include e-health startup Futuremed, crime reporting app Justice Today, academic management system Leaph, P2P delivery startup ParcelTip and energy company Renewable Loop Private Limited.
Agri-tech startup Rera online farm, democratic education platform Vote Africa, digital health startup Wellnescript Solutions and agricultural funding platform YouFarm complete the list.
The startups will pitch in front of a jury that consists of Sharon Wekwete from Omidyar Network, Ethel Bangwayo from UNDP, Lilian Mbayiwa from Old Mutual, Nhena Nyagura from Dandemutande Investments and Claudia Makadristo, regional manager for Africa at Seedstars.
This year, Seedstars is putting extra emphasis on civic technology, a topic that has been gaining more interest over the past years from investors, including Omidyar Network, which has been funding civic tech organisations around the world for over a decade.
“We are proud to have a civic-tech-focused event in Zimbabwe this time. Keeping a very close eye on the innovations that can reshape the relationship between citizens and the society we expect to have an impact not only in the country, but in Africa in general,” said Makadristo.
