Seedstars crowns 3 winners at Soweto startup pitching event

International startup programme Seedstars, announced Umoyair, Sortd, and Riovic as winners of its Soweto pitching event. The event took place on 11 June at eKasiLABS Garankuwa, Tshwane.

The event consisted of ten pre-selected startups pitching in front of a panel of judges and an audience. Thereafter, the three winners were decided.

The three startups will go on to compete in Johannesburg against winners from the Cape Town and Durban Seedstars pitching events.

From there, an overall South African startup winner will be chosen who will represent SA in the Seedstars World pitching event in 2017,  and stand a chance of winning a US$500 000 equity prize.

Jacobs Foundation will award US$50 000 to the best global education startup at the final event.

Umoyair is a cross-network free call platform, Sortd is an email organising ‘smart skin’ for Gmail, and Riovic is a digital and P2P insurance company.

Read more: Seedstars crowns 3 winners at Cape Town pitching event

They all competed against Masokko, The Gem Project, DroneSnap, Zula Afrika, BOTTLES Delivery, Goldpay, and Pinard Aéronautique.

Entrepreneur Traction is acting as the local partner for Seedstars, with Standard Bank, Omidyar Network, PayFast, and Seedspace supporting the competition.

SA-based mobile recruitment platform Giraffe won the 2015 Seedstars World event where it took home the US$500 000 equity prize.

Feature image via Seedstars.