SBC head smiling as Startupbootcamp Cape Town applications top 1000

Startupbootcamp (SBC) Africa managing director Philip Kiracofe says he is “quite happy” with the large number of Africans countries from which the organisation received applications for this year’s Startupbootcamp Cape Town programme.

On Friday Startupbootcamp (SBC) Africa stated on its Twitter account that it had received 1018 applications for this year’s Startupbootcamp Cape Town. SBC Africa will select 10 startups for the programme — which will be announced on 13 July.

This year’s programme will be the second cohort SBC Africa has run — following the launch last year of the programme.

“We are most excited by the number of different countries we are getting applications from countries like Togo, Benin, the DRC, and Cameroon,” Kiracofe (pictured above) said in a phone call today (29 May), adding that these were well outside the expected countries to apply.

“At least a dozen different countries are represented in the top 100 so far,” he added.

Kiracofe said the significant size of applications for this year’s cohort — almost double the 520 applications the organisation received for its first cohort — is an”extraordinary testament” of how big the Cape Town accelerator has become.

He added that this year the accelerator had seen a “much broader reach” with applications coming from as far as North America, Asia, and the Middle East. “We are really excited by our reach. Word is getting out to the far corners of the world,” he said.

Featured image: SBC Africa managing director Philip Kiracofe