Seedstars World, the global seed-stage startup competition for emerging markets and fast-growing startup scenes, is coming for the first time to Bangladesh on November 14th. Seedstars Dhaka is organized by BASIS and Seedstars World.
A ‘Meet the Press’ was held to declare the above on Seedstars World competition at the BASIS Board Room on Saturday. BASIS President and General Partner of Fenox Venture Capital Shameem Ahsan was the chief guest at the event. BASIS Vice President M. Rashidul Hasan, Joint Secretary General Mostafizur Rahman Sohel, Treasurer Shah Imraul Kaeesh, BASIS Executive Director Sami Ahmed, Managing Director of BD Venture Ltd Shawkat Hossain, National Project Coordinator of NTF-3 Bangladesh Project Mahfuzul Quader and Implementation Head of Seedstars Dhaka Arif Nizami were present among others
“Entrepreneurs are Bangladesh’s economics future strength, To create new entrepreneurs is Seedstars vision and we want to promote them both locally and internationally using this competition.” explains Shameem Ahsan, President, BASIS.
Seedstars World focus on three major tracks FinTech, TravelTech and StarTech. Each of these Investment Tracks will have a USD 500K equity prize for its winner, with the association of one of the biggest players in the industries as an added bonus. Various other prizes can be won outside the tracks such as the Space Prize, a USD 50k grant awarded by Inmarsat and AP-Swiss. All regional winners of the local events will be invited back to Switzerland to pitch at the final event in 2016 in Switzerland. There will 4 local workshops on November 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 13th on FinTech, TravelTech, StarTech and Women in IT. Applied participants will be invited into bootcamp on November 12 – 14.
Other than the basic criteria for a seed-stage company that is less than 2 years since the founding date, that has less than USD 500’000 in funding and that has an available MVP, Seedstars World is also looking for smart startups that solve regional issues and/or develop profitable products for the global market. With partners such as MEST, Google for Entrepreneurs, and Microsoft, Seedstars World identifies fast-growing and pioneering startup scenes and is on a mission to support regional businesses and their growth.
Up to 12 of the best startups in Bangladesh will be invited to pitch for the opportunity to compete at the final Seedstars Summit, happening in Lausanne on March 3rd, 2016.
Seedstars World is locally represented by Minhaz Anwar of Betterstories Ltd. He said “Seedstars World is connecting the next big ideators and innovators of Bangladesh, in the fields of Fintech and Traveltech, with the much needed global stage from where a Bangladeshi StartUp can truly become a global superbrand. We are indeed looking forward to seeing the next bKash, Uber, Expedia or TripAdvisor from Dhaka”.
This initiative is powered by ITC, Fenox Venture Capital and BD Venture Ltd., and activated by Betterstories Ltd and PreneurLab. Participants can register for the workshops in http://bit.ly/sswdhaka and in the main event and bootcamp through http://www.seedstarsworld.com/event/seedstars-dhaka-2015/