Seedstars to expand hubs to Cairo and set to conduct first startup pitch competition this year

Seedstars said Seedspace Cairo will have a co-working area, offering a wide range of membership plans, from single-desks areas to private offices for larger teams. The hub will have a co-living area, an accommodation alternative for those wishing to visit and live in Cairo.

Romulo Navarrete, head of operations at Seedspace, described the move as a “strategic step” for Seedstars which will help the organization to get closer to the community that it has helped forge over the last years. Seedspace currently has seven hubs: two in Geneva, Switzerland (La Chevillarde and La Praille); one in Lagos, Nigeria; another one in Abidjan, Ivory Coast; one in Cape Town, South Africa and two in Colombia (Bogota and Medellin).

Navarrete said the aim is to have 15 hubs around the world by the end of this year. “This expansion is pivotal so that we can bring more impact to local ecosystems while interconnecting the different locations, creating access to an international community of entrepreneurs, mentors, investors, and corporates interested in innovation,” he said.

Cairo pitching event

The launch will coincide with one of the first pitching events under the 2018 Seedstars competition (see details here). The event will feature five entrepreneurs, that target solution that aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals. The winning startup will be invited to Switzerland next year where the company will have a chance to win up to $1-million in investment by competing against startups from other emerging markets.

The winner of last year’s competition, AgroCenta from Ghana, was presented with the Seedstars World 2018 title at an event in Lausanne, Switzerland earlier this month. The startups selected to pitch at the Seedstars Cairo event need to be less than two years old, have raised less than $500 000 in funding, built a minimum viable product, ideally with existing traction and have the potential for regional and global scalability.

The Cairo event will be followed by pitching events in three other North African countries: Tunis, Tunisia and Algiers, Algeria  (11 May) and Casablanca, Morocco (24 May).