Standard Bank hosted Seedstars World South Africa start-up competition
On June 29, 2017, Standard Bank hosted the final round of the Seedstars World South Africa start-up competition - the world’s largest competition in emerging markets.
Seedstars offers the opportunity for the best start-ups to pitch their business ideas, network with other entrepreneurs and attend discussion events. On the day of the finals, about 200 people attended the event, and a record of over R2 billion of investment capital was represented in the room.
Ten of the best early stage start-ups in South Africa were invited to pitch to a panel of judges and potential investors in the audience. On the panel sat Mrs. Jayshree Naidoo, Head of the Standard Bank Incubator, which is a space designed to assist SME’s continuously through a series of customised workshops which are run at the Incubator throughout the year.
Standard Bank has established this partnership with Seedstars and its local ambassador, Vuyisa Qabaka, as it is a natural extension to the bank’s involvement in the development of the SME sector at all levels. “With more than 600 companies in South Africa presenting their ideas to Seedstars this year, we can confidently say that innovation and entrepreneurship are alive and thriving in South Africa,” Mrs Naidoo says.
The start-ups were widely representative with four of the start-ups being female founded or co-founded and five of them with black founders. Of the 10 start-ups that pitched on the day, the winner was Essential Medical Guidance Tech (EMG), an innovative Cape-based company supplying a comprehensive medical database to the medical profession. The start-up won the opportunity to attend the regional summit in Mozambique and represent the country against other start-ups in emerging countries at the Seedstars Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland on April 12, 2018 where the global winner will be awarded up to US$ 500,000 in equity investment.
EMG Tech’s major market offering is the EMGUIDANCE product, which brings details about pharmaceutical offerings, their uses, prescription information, and care coordination information, amongst other services, free of charge to doctors and other medical professionals through their personal mobile devices.
Speaking at the SA final event, Yaseen Khan, CEO of EMG said that academic material forms a major part of the offering which currently reaches about 5 000 doctors and 1 200 other members of the medical profession. Content includes:
The first and second runner-ups are Zlto and Empty Trips Pty Ltd respectively. Zlto is a digital rewards platform that incentivizes its users for positive behaviours, promoting the doing of good. Empty Trips is Africa’s first online smart transport marketplace connecting transporters, brokers and shippers. The other startups invited to pitch were GreenFingers Mobile, mbora, CommuScore, Muzi, Invoiceworx, Lenoma Legal, and Home Farm.
The competition attracts more than 5 000 entrants whose SM E ideas are based mainly on providing valuable social services in emerging markets. The objective is to expose these companies to the broader international business community who may wish to invest in a start-up, or look to helping the SME introduce their services in other parts of the world.
What made this event noteworthy was the wide scope of entrepreneurial ventures being developed by tech-savvy South Africans who identify niche market opportunities and then develop solutions. The areas covered at the final included companies offering apps to assist the transport industry fill open spaces on trucks, trains, boats and planes; a credit rating scheme for assessing unbanked individuals participating in stokvels; an upmarket hydroponic-based system for growing nutritious food at home and a scheme for assisting unemployed, matriculated youth earn points for community work that can be redeemed for airtime or other necessities to assist with job hunting.