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Robert Sussman, co-founder and co-CEO of international award winning ICT managed services company Integr8, is set to sit on the judging panel of Switzerland based Seedstars.
Seedstars World promotes, connects and invests up to $1,5mn in emerging market start-ups through its exclusive start-up competition in 60 countries.
“Seedstars Cape Town” is the local leg of the global competition to identify and reward agile, successful and sustainable start-up ventures.
AA Cape Town, South Africa, based event will take place on 27 May 2016 and during this regional event, a winning company among top 10 to 12 pre-selected start-ups will be selected.
These start-ups must pitch their business to a panel of seasoned ICT professionals, business leaders and sector specialists. If they are successful, they will attract the attention of an audience comprising investors, entrepreneurs, corporates and institutions.
The top 3 winners of Cape Town’s event will be invited to again pitch in Johannesburg for the national finals on June 30th at Standard Bank Incubator, where the winner will receive a free trip to the Seedstars Summit hosted in Geneva, Switzerland to represent their respective business and their country. This is a weeklong adventure consisting of a boot camp, international conference and investor forum.
There is an opportunity to win up to $500,000 equity investment.
Sussman will sit alongside Executive Director of Trade and Industry, Incubation Lead at Standard Bank and Principal of Omidyar Networks, a $780m investment firm founded by Pier Omidyar – the founder of Ebay. The high-impact technology entrepreneur is a highly respected figure across Africa’s emerging technology services market.
“We understand what it takes to grow something from nothing. Although we walked our own journey with no mentors, advisors or investors, we understand the benefit and insight that can be delivered to companies, by having the right people guide the journey,” Sussman adds.
“Start-ups today have a unique opportunity to plug directly into a services paradigm that is digitally enhanced and sustained to help them. At the same time there is pressure to scale and perform quickly. Seedstars is a recognised global initiative that we are proud to be affiliated with – I’m excited to be working with them on the African continent,” he says.
“We are incredibly excited to have Rob on our team. His experience as a seasoned high impact serial entrepreneur together with corporate experience will add tremendous value to the selected startups way beyond the Seedstars Cape Town event,” concludes Marcello Schermer, Seedstars Regional Manager.
