Here’s a breakdown of top 130 applicants for 2018 Startupbootcamp Cape Town

Startupbootcamp (SBC) Africa has narrowed down the list of the over 1000 applications it received for its upcoming Startupbootcamp Cape Town accelerator to 130 applications.

Just over a third of these hail from West Africa, SBC Africa chief investment officer Zachariah George (pictured above) revealed earlier this week.

The accelerator programme will kick off in August. SBC Africa will select 10 startups for the programme — which will be announced on 13 July.

On Tuesday, George said startups from 77 countries across the world had applied to join the three-month long accelerator programme, with 87% of them from Africa.

SBC Africa stated that this year’s crop of applicants have gained more traction compared to last year’s candidates with 30% already generating revenues

“We saw a big increase in the quality of applications and also in the diversity of technological problems being solved, including fintech, insurtech, AI, Big Data, blockchain solutions, and companies with significantly more traction than what we saw last year,” George said in a statement.

Of the top 130 applications that SBC Africa received, West African startups account for 34%, and are closely followed by East African and Southern African startups at 27% and 26% respectively.

The majority of the startups in the top 130 deal with or are developing solutions to tackle issues around finance, at just over 15%, followed by about seven percent who are in mobile and about six percent who develop mobile solutions.

Of the total number of applicants (1004), just 12% were founded by women.

SBC Africa also revealed that this year’s applicants have “progressed further along the development, launch and rollout stage” and are showing more traction compared to last year’s candidates.

Of the applicants 30% are already generating revenues, 13% are at the “customer non-revenue stage”, and 14% are in the alpha and beta stages. The remaining 43% are still in idea or early prototype stage, SBC Africa said.

The SBC Africa team is currently working to select the top 20 applicants ahead of its final selections days which will take place on 11 and 12 July in Cape Town.

Read more: SBC head smiling as Startupbootcamp Cape Town applications top 1000