This year’s finalists for the Seedstars Kenya startup competition are: Ilara Health, Julla, Lentera, Nurse-In-Hand, Pesabase, Pezesha, Shamba Records, Smatbeba LTD, WorkPay and Tanda. Come June 28th, the 10 startups will battle it out for the title of Kenya’s most promising startup and the chance to represent Kenya at the Seedstars Africa Summit. The winner will also get the chance to win a spot at the Seedstars Global Summit in Switzerland where they stand to take home a 500K USD investment prize and a 3 months access to an investment readiness program.
The winner of last year’s competition was Bluewave Technologies, an affordable insurance platform.
This year, however, the pitching competition will be a closed-door event at Nailab (no external audience) and for the first time, Seedstars Africa will have an all women jury panel. The jury will consists of Anne-Marie Chidzero (CIO, FSD), Eva Warigia (Executive Director, EAVCA), Tsakane Ngoepe (Portfolio Manager AHL Venture Partners), Wanjiru Chabeda (Investment Consultant, Zephyr Acorn), Winnie Ibuyako (Associate Director, LGT Impact) and Claudia Makadristo (Regional Manager for Africa, Seedstars).
“It is a Seedstars first to have an all women judging panel. This is part of our efforts to increase women participation on all levels (mentors, experts, jury, startups). We are extremely excited to work with this jury panel on selecting the most promising startup in Nairobi and we believe that the closed door event format will allow us to ask some more sensitive and in-depth questions to the entrepreneurs.”
Claudia Makadristo, SEEDSTARS Regional Manager for Africa
Seedstars World is the largest seed-stage startup competition for emerging markets and fast-growing startup scenes. And this year they have joined forces with ABAN (The African Business Angel Network (ABAN) ) to host an (angel) investor meetup. The 4-hour session will be a unique opportunity for investors to network, gain key insights and knowledge and access to Seedstars and ABAN deal flow.
