Network with investors and entrepreneurs from around the world

Seedstars World focuses on fast-growing markets and emerging startup scenes because there is a tremendous amount of untapped and global opportunities and passionate entrepreneurs waiting to be discovered.

“Silicon Valley is not the only place in the world where talented entrepreneurs hide” says Alisee De Tonnac, cofounder of Seedstars World. “All entrepreneurs, no matter where they come from deserve a chance to thrive. Many of the projects we’ve seen are fantastic, they have a viable business model that not only works in their local market but also may serve as a global product. Those, we believe, are the leading companies of tomorrow.”

A rigorous selection process
In each of the 20 countries, an exclusive one-day event was organized to allow the best-in-class startups to pitch their ideas. Regional events were organised by the Seedstars World team and supported by various partners around the world, like Co-Creation Hub in Nigeria, Startup Chile in Chile, Microsoft Venture in India, 21212.com in Brazil and sponsors like Swissnex, Nestlé and Firmenich. Seedstars World received between 50 and 200 applications per country. At the end of the day, a winner was crowned and invited to come to Switzerland to participate to the grand finale.

After each regional event, Seedstars World put together an acceleration and coaching program to help the startups improve their global strategy and tackle key problems before the final event.

A week in Switzerland for the winners
The 20 regional winners are invited to spend a week in Switzerland, from February 1^st to February 7^th. Seven days, during which the entrepreneurs will have a chance to also relax and visit Geneva and Lausanne and places like The Olympic Museum, The UN, and the Red Cross.

To start the week, the startups will participate to a 3-day bootcamp, from the 1^st  the the 3^rd sponsored by The State of Vaud and hosted at EPFL. Startups will work on their pitch and presentation skills with the help of international entrepreneurs, renowned companies such as Evernote or U-start, and some of the best accelerators in Europe (Startup Boot Camp, H-Farm, Rockstart and LeCamping.)

An event to understand investments in emerging markets

The final event will be on Tuesday, 4^th at the CICG in Geneva, Switzerland, starting at 1.30pm and will be hosted by the world famous LIFT conference.

More than 300 attendees are expected to take part in this first-time event. The crowd will mainly be composed of investors and entrepreneurs but international corporations, government executives, journalists and bloggers are also expected.

During the event, the main focus will be to give a glance at the opportunities for innovation and new technologies in emerging markets through booths, talks, information and of course the competition.

The winner of the Seedstars World 2013 edition will receive an equity investment of up to $500k and be crowned “Best Startup In The World” by a panel of international jury (entrepreneurs and investors such as Alex Farcet, Stefan Glaenzer or Martin Velasco).

All the Seedstars World startups will host a booth and get a chance to discuss and interact with the public, however only the 5 finalists will pitch on stage and only the title-holder will get a chance to pitch at the LIFT Venture Night.

Seedstars World is open to the public and tickets are available on the website.

We are offering our readers tickets with 40% off. To get the promotion code you can write a mail to news@startupticker.ch. We will also publish the discount code in our newsletter on Friday. You can subscribe to our weekly newsletter to the right of this article.