Seedstars Summit 2020 set for Switzerland in April
Seedstars, the emerging market startup community and investor, has officially announced its global Seedstars Summit 2020. The 7th edition of the event will occur in Lausanne, Switzerland from 1-3 April 2020.
The Seedstars Summit is the final step of Seedstars World, a global startup competition in emerging markets. For the past six years, the Seedstars teams have been scouting for the best early-stage startups by travelling around 80+ countries for nine months.
This year, the event will showcase the 48 most promising startups from emerging economies in Africa, Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. They are competing for the title of Seedstars Global Winner and up to $500K in equity investment, and additional prizes will be granted by Seedstars partners.
In 2020, as Seedstars unveils a new theme for the Summit, all teams will focus on how to serve, galvanize entrepreneurial ecosystems and go beyond borders, limitations, structural challenges, financial constraints, and prejudice.
The event will continue to be a driving force for sustainable change in emerging markets, bringing together over 1,500 participants at the Swiss Tech Convention Center (EPFL campus). As a catalyst to facilitate best business and investment opportunities, the global Seedstars Summit will gather its network of startups, investors, mentors, ambassadors, partners and key stakeholders.
What to expect
A four-day event, the Summit will launch with a two-day boot camp, where startups will receive a mix of theoretical and practical content, with input provided by the Seedstars investment team and its partners, all experts in growth models and acquisition channels. The following day, one-on-one meetings between key investors, mentors, and entrepreneurs will take place during the Investor Forum.
The main conference day on 3 April 2020 will host networking sessions, industry-themed pitch sessions and/or workshops in the morning. During the afternoon, the mainstage will feature startup pitches, keynotes from industry leaders and Seedstars alumni, as well as prize announcements.
For the grand finale, the global Seedstars winner will be selected among the 48 startups and announced on stage. To top it off, there will be a closing cocktail where all attendees will be able to connect and celebrate entrepreneurship.
The Summit will also be an opportunity to showcase and strengthen Seedstars initiatives launched throughout the past year.
In 2019 alone, the group launched several initiatives to deliver in-depth support to all involved ecosystems including Seedstars Africa Ventures, a sub-Saharan Africa fund targeting $100mn to make early-stage minority investments from $250,000 to $5 million in the most promising and innovative ventures across sectors and countries.
Also, the Investment Readiness Program (IRP), a five-module education program challenging the traditional acceleration model by creating a custom-made mix, is relaunching to improve early-stage startups performance and get them ready to secure investment. Next batch of the IRP starts in January 2020 and application are now open. The Seedstars group dedication to telling exceptional entrepreneurs stories also took a life of its own with the Seedstars TV webisodes and the very first Seedstars documentary.
“The past year has been impressive and exciting for the Seedstars group. As we are getting ready to bring these promising entrepreneurs to the forefront of the technology and innovation scene in Switzerland, we are looking forward to creating more networking, investment and partnership opportunities. We really tried to redefine the impact Seedstars could have on these ecosystems and our new theme, "Beyond", sums up everything we stand for. We are truly going above and beyond as we try to dissolve all possible limitations, whether gender-based or financial, so they can reach their full potential and impact millions of lives in emerging markets.” says Alisée de Tonnac, CEO and partner at Seedstars.
For more, go to www.seedstarsworld.com/summit
