Seedstars is a Swiss-based investment holding with a mission to impact people’s lives in emerging markets. The Seedstars World Competition is held annually to scout for the most promising startups from Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America.

Africa’s finalists are:

● Flamingoo Foods (Tanzania) is using cutting edge technology and their trained staff to mill rice collected from trusted farmers within the Rukwa Rift Valley.

● Also in agritech, CAPTURE Solutions (Ivory Coast) provides B2B ICT applications to companies and organisations in need of re-organising and streamlining their working processes.

● Ladda (Nigeria), a one-stop investment platform.

● Sparco Inc. (Zambia), a startup providing a Pan-African payment infrastructure that unifies all payments market players on the continent and,

● HealthTech startup Rohobot Home from Ethiopia that provides home-based healthcare service for chronically ill and aged people at affordable prices.

The startups will now face off in the African regional finals to be aired on 16 April. The regional winner will be selected based on their startup strength and scalability and will go on to represent Africa and compete for the US$ 500 000 grand prize in equity investment.

All regional finals can be followed here. Viewers can also watch the Ecosystem Insights presentation, and listen to the panel discussions where speakers from UN Women, International Finance Corporation, the World Bank Group and CAF Development Bank and other organisations will be discussing women empowerment and gender equality.

Growing through the challenges

Founded in 2013, Seedstars’ projects cover over 90 emerging ecosystems through a variety of initiatives such as the online Seedstars World Competition, acceleration programmes, physical hubs called Seedspace, venture capital investments and company building activities.

Eugenia Shevchenko, the competition's lead said, “I can’t wait for the regional finals! Considering how hard 2020 was for each of us, it’s been really amazing to see our finalists grow through the competition while going through the Online Seedstars Academy as well as the month-long Investment Readiness Program.”

The global finale is expected to be held later this month.