Seedstars World (SSW) will make its debut in Uganda on the 27th of June, continuing on its journey to emerging markets and fast-growing startup scenes.
Seedstars World is the most exclusive startup competition for emerging markets and fast-growing startup scenes. Based in Geneva, Switzerland and founded by Alisee de Tonnac and Pierre-Alain Masson, it is supported by the venture builder Seedstars SA.
2013’s tour of 20 cities ended with a final round in Geneva, where the most promising startups from all over the world competed one last time in front of an international jury to earn the final grand prize, up to USD 500,000 in equity investment. Flitto, an innovative crowdsourcing translation platform from South Korea nabbed first place, with its CEO Simon Lee stating: “After Seedstars World came to Seoul, and crowned us Regional Winner, doors opened for us and we really gained traction. The publicity it created was also fantastic and this [global] win will take us even further.”
The quality of the startups of 2013’s 20 cities was impressive and participants, partners, and investors encouraged the team to explore other ecosystems as well, thus 10 new cities were added. More than 600 entrepreneurs from two thousand applications will be selected for the 30 pitching events in 2014. The new round will also incorporate old friends, as former SSW regional winners continue to be part of the journey to help the company reach even more startups in their respective ecosystems.
Alisee de Tonnac, CEO, stated that “Seedstars World will hold its worldwide competition every year and grow exponentially to all the corners of the world and put all the fast growing startup scenes on the map! Indeed, our goal is to create THE network for quality entrepreneurs around the world and help entrepreneurs, accelerators/incubators, co-working spaces and investors to interact with one another.” The network aims to spread the Seedstars spark, which accelerated the regional winning startups’ progress by tripling their funding on average during the first edition in 2013. This currently amounts to a total of 6 million USD of follow-up funding.
Making its debut in Uganda, Seedstars World is coming to Kampala for its twelfth event of the 2014 tour. This year, SSW will partner withthe Outbox, where the event will be hosted. The event is free to join and more information can be found on the Seedstars Kampala page.
Competition Summary
30 regional events: an exclusive one-day event where the best-in-class startups pitch their ideas in front of a regional jury panel.
Final event: the 30 finalists of the regional events will be invited to Switzerland to participate in a 4-day bootcamp and the grand finale where they will compete in front of an international jury and European investors. One winner will win up to USD 500’000 in equity investment.Criteria: – less than USD 500’000 in capital investment – maximum 2 years since founding date – a product that is up and running on the market. – a global project, potentially scalable at an international level.
How to participate? Invitation only. If you are interested in receiving an invitation please contact us at info@seedstarsworld.com
