Thirty startups from across Africa have advanced to the regional finals of the Seedstars World competition, the overall winner of which will secure US$500,000 in funding.
The annual Seedstars World competition, which is taking place virtually for this cycle, received over 5,000 applicants from across the world, with 94 startups from emerging markets advancing to the regional stage.
The local winners are set to represent their respective countries as they compete for a spot at the global final, where the grand prize is US$500,000 in funding. African startups Giraffe and AgroCenta are previous winners of the competition.
Thirty of the local winners are from Africa. A number of those focus on e-health, namely HMO-Africa (Burundi), Rohobot Home Based Health Care Service (Ethiopia), Innovarx Global Health (Gambia), Denko Kunafoni (Mali), BioMec (Mozambique), StafMedic (Algeria) and Speetar (Libya).
Four HR tech startups are also selected, namely Dial-a-skill (Botswana), CodeLn (Ghana), Keys Job (Senegal) and Zindi (South Africa), while crowdfunding and payments solutions are represented by Astech-Congo – Umoja Funding (DRC), BrilliantTS Africa (Mauritius), Ladda (Nigeria), and Sparco (Zambia)
There are a number of agri-tech startups selected, in the shape of AIT Group (Poultry Farmers Management Systems) (Cameroon), Neytech Solutions (Malawi), and Flamingoo Foods (Tanzania), as well as ed-tech startups. A handful of ed-tech startups – Zydii (Kenya), OPower (Sierra Leone), Phenemenon tech (Zimbabwe) and Oriigami (Morocco) – are also selected.
E-commerce startups SOCIA (Angola) and Al-Mawwan (Egypt) are also named regional finalists, are are transport tech startups CAPTURE Solutions (Ivory Coast) and Ridelink (Uganda). The rest of the finalists are comprised of integrated platform solutions company RESERMAR CV Reservas Online (Cape Verde), IoT startup Tasked Technology (Namibia), service automation provider Octan group (Rwanda), and supply chain logistics startup Esky Pro (Tunisia).
After the regionals, 10 startups will receive US$50,000 in investment as they take part in a one-month Investment Readiness Programme, before they go on to compete at the grand final for a shot at securing US$500,000 in equity investment. Online episodes for the regional stage of the competition will be aired at the end of January 2021, with the grand final taking place in March.
“It has been inspiring seeing entrepreneurs from across the region soldier on through the pandemic and continue to work hard on their solutions. We have met incredible entrepreneurs and are excited to see them competing at the regional stage for a chance to be at the Seedstars grand final in 2021. We wish all the local winners the best of luck for the regional stage competition,” said Seedstars Africa regional manager Lorraine Davis.
