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Our purpose

With 85% of the global population living in emerging and frontier markets, we see not only billions of opportunities to take, but also billions of lives to improve.

Great ideas and talent exist everywhere, not just in the Silicon Valley. Capital, business support, and access to networks, on the other hand, do not. We envision a world where every talented and determined entrepreneur has access to the resources that they need to grow their business and create a lasting impact in their communities.

Our story

2012

Seedstars was founded in 2012 by Pierre-Alain, Michael and Adrien, three entrepreneurs from Switzerland who connected over their passion for entrepreneurship and building companies from scratch. Some time after, Alisée de Tonnac, joined the team and together they launched the biggest pitching competition to discover the most promising early-stage high-growth ventures, in order to build the largest entrepreneurial community in emerging and frontier markets. Benjamin Benaim was later added to the team to drive forward the company building activities of Seedstars.

2013-2017

In the following years, investment specialist, Charlie Graham-Brown, began the branch of Seedstars focused on investing in ventures with high-growth potential and supplying the portfolio with socially dedicated businesses from various industry sectors and geographical locations, which perfectly complemented the purpose of the Seedstars World Competition.

2018

Seedstars continued growing with the creation of our Seedspaces, dedicated entrepreneurship spaces where ventures can have a physical space for coworking, networking and learning. In fact, many of the entrepreneurial programs that Seedstars and our partners run, take place at the Seedspaces in Lima, Mexico City, Abidjan, Lagos, Cairo, Dar es Salaam, Nur Sultan or Yangon amongst other spaces.

2020

Seedstars has reimagined several of its physical activities into new online formats. In this way we continue to enable entrepreneurs in emerging markets through virtual programs, events and competitions, by connecting them with expert mentors and investors without geographical barriers. For this purpose we also launched a storytelling hub called Seedstars Life, where we bring the spotlight to the change-makers who too often go unnoticed.

Today

Seedstars has grown into a global community that believes in the innovative potential of emerging markets. We aim to contribute by running the Seedstars World Competition, Seedspace hubs, various acceleration and growth programs and, at the same time, investing in high-growth companies from Latin America, Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Central and South Asia.

Changemakers

We are a company of change makers across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Central-Eastern Europe, and Asia who are passionate about making a difference in emerging and frontier markets through entrepreneurship and technology.

As an international investment and education company headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, our work spans 90+ countries with 15 offices around the globe. We support the world’s most ambitious and dedicated entrepreneurs in growing and scaling their companies to create meaningful and lasting change.

Promising entrepreneurs

The focus of our work is to invest in the most promising entrepreneurs heading up high-growth companies in emerging and frontier markets. We support these ventures with customised and responsive programs to help them develop profitable companies that can have a broader impact.

Seedstars partners with governments, developmental financial institutions, foundations, corporations and investors to build sturdy and healthy entrepreneurial ecosystems that drive purposeful social and economic development. To do this, we use our global cross-sector expertise, and we harness the power of our international community.

Our values

GET SH*T DONE

We move the needle. We are changemakers in passionate pursuit of advancing entrepreneurship -- but we don’t just ‘do’ for the sake of doing. We focus on the right things, progressing on that which has the biggest impact.

IN EXPERIMENTS WE TRUST

We operate in complex and uncertain markets. We’re doing what no one else has done before. To that end, we push the boundaries of our current knowledge through focused learning and data-driven experiments.

INDEPENDENTLY TOGETHER

We’re on a mission bigger than any of us. We work in sync to achieve our goals and move towards our vision, but we also value independent thinkers.

OUT OF THE COMFORT ZONE

We’re movers and shakers trying to challenge the status quo. We boldly try new things and take risks.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

We’re not driven by profit, but we understand that money keeps us alive and helps us move towards our vision. We understand the financial implications of our decisions and we value our resources.

HACK THE SYSTEM

We move fast with less resources. We believe we can find our way around any problem by thinking outside the box.

KEEP IT SWISS

We are committed to creating the ultimate value for our customers and partners and delivering it on time and with attention to detail, in line with the highest quality standards.

NO EXCUSES

We deliver on our promises and are accountable for our actions.

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Our partners

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Let’s impact emerging markets together

Having the biggest positive impact in emerging markets is our mission and purpose as a company.

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