The Seedstars Summit for Emerging Markets :: And the Winners are…

This year in March, the long awaited Seedstars Summit welcomed its Global audience under the theme Billions. As usual, the agenda included insightful conferences, talks and workshops dissecting the topic about how to impact people’s lives in emerging markets through entrepreneurship and technology. The highlight of the summit was once again the final ceremony, where up to USD 1 million of equity investment was awarded to one of the 54 regional finalists.

Scouting for the best startups around the world, the Seedstars international team organized regional competitions in 54 courtiers establishing one winner per country. All finalists were invited to a three day bootcamp, followed by the famous Semi-Finals and Final. Open to the public, the final ceremony established the Seedstars World Global Winner, who received USD 500 000 in equity investment. Other sectors such as Travel and space also got rewarded with equity, investments and grants. The event got together around thousand entrepreneurs, venture capitals, corporate executives, business angels, government officials, journalists and startup enthusiasts who joined this amazing experience in Switzerland on 3^rd March.

This year the underlying theme of the Summit was Billions aiming to raise awareness of how technology and entrepreneurship can impact billions of people’s lives. In her own words, Alisee de Tonnac, CEO Seedstars World shares:

“Today, there are over 4 billion people without access to the Internet, which in my language means 4 billion potential consumers, opportunities and connected citizens. In the next 4 years alone, nearly half a billion people will come online for the first time. Venturing a bit further into the future, by 2020, 8 out of 10 smartpones will be located in emerging markets. Emerging Markets are at the centre of the map”

It was certainly difficult to choose from the range of exciting and innovative startups joining the Final, but there could be only one winner. And the winners are…

Global Winner

Giraffe (South Africa) is a mobile platform that helps to connect employees with employers in South Africa. Giraffe has succeeded to connect 10 000 jobs with over 1000 employers just 2 months after it launched.

Best Space Startup

Map Tasking (Panama) Map Tasking is a platform to send tasks for remote employees and track their progress

Best Travel Startup

Trip My Dream (Ukraine) A travel service that helps to pick up, analyze and acquire the best flight deals and stay anywhere in the world.

Best Woman Entrepreneur

OmniUp (Morocco) OmniUp has developed a bespoke service in the deployment of the WiFi hotspot solution in hotels and airports.

Most Innovative Startup

Eora 3D (Autralia) is a high-precision 3D Scanning, powered directly by a smartphone. Thanks to a successful kickstarter campaign, Eora 3D raised more than USD 600K from over 60 countries, which equals 750% of its initial goals.