Though the grand winner of the second edition of Seedstars World was Salarium from the Philippines, a leading HR resource in emerging markets used by companies such as DHL.
The Public Vote award, presented by Republique et Canton de Geneve went to Kenya’s OkHi, a solution that offers smartphone geolocalization for the 4 billion people worldwide that do not have an address while the School of Management Fribourg named Nigeria’s Green Energy, which turns plastic waste into petrol as the most innovative.
Co-founded by Timbo Drayson, OkHi allows users to create and share their physical addresses via their mobile phones and allows them to share them with their friends via WhatsApp, SMS or email so that they can locate their friends or families or even markets and physical landmarks.
Timbo told TechMoran he was inspired to develop the platform due to the massive need of location services in the country especially for ecommerce and emergency services.
OkHi is set to recieve funding via the Seedstars World investment fund, including other finalists like Singapore’s 6Degrees, a self updating phone book, Peruvian travel platform Busportal, crowdsourcing concert organizer Krowdpop from Seoul, the Brazilian hardware device Ploog, for your desktop on the go, India’s Scandid app for geolocalized savings and discounts, Salarium, the Philippine payroll service, Yerevan learning management system Sololearn, casual gaming studio The Other Guys from Argentina, and Bangkok’s Washbox24, an automatized laundry service thanks to specialized lockers.
Funding will take place via the Seedstars World Crowd Fund, which allows European investors to invest with a minimum of £100. The fund is running via Seedrs, the first crowdfunding platform for funds in Europe (equity crowdfunding). The recently opened fund is raising USD 500K and is closing in March.
Seedstars World has already built an impressive track record: Its first round of 20 startups raised USD 14 Million and hired 150 new employees, after which 2014 expanded to 36 countries. For the 2015 tour, 50 cities will be visited throughout the year.
Yesterday, Seedstars World SA and online travel agency Bravofly Rumbo Group announced that they will launch a “Travel Track”, which will be held in parallel with the original Seedstars World competition in more than 30 countries to select the best travel startups which will receive $500k from Bravofly Rumbo Group.