Earlier this year in May, we reported that US-based online publisher of tech industry news; TechCrunch was bringing its experience with Startup Battlefield sponsored by Menlo Park-based social networking firm, Facebook Inc., one of the world’s premier startup competitions, for the first time to Sub-Saharan Africa to discover great early stage companies that have created technology to solve problems and develop the ecosystem within the region.
On Tuesday the publisher announced 15 startups including; Uganda’s automated sales assistant startup Sellio – that will pitch at the competition scheduled to take place today in Nairobi, Kenya. Sellio Uganda will be ptitching in the Productivity and Utility category; where startups are most likely to go into full commercial production and have the biggest impact on human potential and/or the largest exit.
The online publishers are looking for the best early stage pre-launch startups where the overall winner will win USD$25,000 (Roughly 90.6 million UGX) and an automatic participation in Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2018
Asides from Sellio, other qualified startups include; WeCashUp, Form+, Delivery Science, Abacus Invest, Lori Systems, Big5 Games, Tango TV, Lomay, SynCommerce, ConnectMed, M-Shule, Dot Learn, Talent2Africa, and AgroCenta.
Each startup will pitch their business to a panel of judges in their respective categories where they will choose a winner in each category and select an overall winner, “Sub-Saharan Africa’s Most Promising Startup,” whose founders will win the cash prize of USD$25,000 in no-equity cash plus an all-expense paid trip for two to San Francisco to compete in the Battlefield at TechCrunch’s flagship event Disrupt SF 2018.
Notably, Sellio was also named among 30 African startups that will be vetted to take part in DEMO Africa, the launchpad event for emerging technologies and trends.
Sellio is an automated sales assistant that helps sellers especially SMEs using Facebook to sell their products with ease. The seller needs to connect the Sellio software on their Facebook page before they upload the products for sale. Once the software is connected to their Facebook page, Sellio immediately adds a smart price tag on each product at an agreed price, and then choose the perfect audience for sellers’ products before boosting them.
The firm also helps these SMEs reply to every single person that comments on your product by sending them a personalized message direct to their inbox where the customers can place their order, then alerts the seller on a product deliver.[related-posts]
Editor’s Note: You can watch the whole event via TechCrunch livestream site.
