Global seed-stage startup competition Seedstars World has announced the 10 startups that will pitch at its pre-selection event in Cape Town on Friday (May 27), with the top three startups to head the the national final in Johannesburg.
Seedstars World will this year hold South African pre-selection events in Cape Town, Durban and Soweto ahead of the national final, with the overall winner of the local events heading to Geneva to pitch for up to US$1 million in funding at the final.
South African mobile recruitment platform Giraffe was named the overall winner of last year’s competition, taking home US$500,000 in investment, while Seedstars recently scaled its academy to Cape Town after a successful launch in Lagos.
The Cape Town pre-selection event takes place on Friday at Workshop 17, with 10 startups pitching to a panel of judges for one of three slots in the Johannesburg national final. This year’s South African competition is taking place with the support of Standard Bank.
Included in the list of startups to pitch are online crew booking service Crew Pencil, on-demand tendering service AirSME, employment platform Britecamp, online mentorship community Carerott, and agricultural platform Farmboek.
The rest of the list is made up of mobile pregnancy and retail service iMobiMama, logistics solution Pargo, ed-tech startup The Student Hub, e-courier service WumDrop, and online travel agency Tribal Tourist.
“Year over year, Cape Town is bringing its best foot forward and showcases the incredible variety and diversity, but also quality of companies that are being built right here in Cape Town. We are very much looking forward to be inspired by the pitches on May 27,” said Marcello Schermer, regional manager for Africa at Seedstars World.