Seedstars World, a seed-stage startup competition for emerging markets, hosted its Istanbul round at Kolektif House.
The Seedstars team shortlisted the top 10 seed-stage startups who pitched on October 15 for the opportunity to compete at the Seedstars Global Summit, which annually takes place in Switzerland where they will get the chance to win up to USD 500,000 in equity investments and other prizes.
The local winners were chosen for their innovative sustainable solutions in their different fields. The 1st winner of the competition was Optiyol a startup that helps freight and passenger transportation fleets for smarter route schedules that reduce costs and improve on-time performance. In second place came User Guiding, which help companies improve product adoption by designing interactive guides and help pages without coding. As for the third place, it was taken by Uservision, Uservision is a platform helping brands to acquire agile implicit, explicit and subconscious qualitative insights from their target audience
The list of the Finalists also included: AYVOS, Bitexen, Ekmob, İltema High Technology Materials’ R&D L.L.C. and Sertifier
The list of the Jury members included: Francesca Bombassei, VC Analyst at Seedstars World, Mustafa Tandoğan, Marketing Business Development at Kolektif House, Sabina Babayeva, Programs Director at Hackquarters and Gamze Can, CFO at Startupfon
Prior to the pitching event, Seedstars hosted a dynamic training for entrepreneurs. It indulged in the topics around Investment Readiness, the Art of the Pitch, in addition to tailored mentorship sessions with experts from the market. The list included: Tayfun Ugur, Board Member at British Chamber of Commerce, Omer Erkmen an Angel investor, Serkan Ünsal Founder of Startups.watch, Burak Yilmaz and Yagiz Karadeniz Strategy and Investment Directors at Tarvenn
“We’re delighted to be back in Istanbul for the 4th time and really enjoyed delving into different sectors of the Turkish seed-stage scenes. The enthusiasm and diligence of the entrepreneurs we worked with impressed us and we look forward to working with the runner ups to scale up the impact they can bring to their respective markets” says Francesca Bombaessi, VC Analyst at Seedstars World.
Seedstars World has locked the dates to also host the Regional Summit on December 10, 11, and 12 in Casablanca. You could grab your tickets now here: https://www.seedstarsworld.com/event/seedstars-summit-mena-2019