Angolan e-commerce platform Roque Online wins Seedstars Luanda

Angolan e-commerce platform Roque Online has been crowned the winner of this year’s Seedstars Luanda pitching event. The event took place on Friday (6 September).

The startup, which was founded last year by CEO Geraldine Geraldo and Juan Carlos Moreno, provides informal market vendors and service providers with tools that assist them manage themselves as a micro-enterprise.

Cartão Jovem Angola — a card that provides discounts on items such as retail products, movie tickets and restaurants to youth through partnerships with companies — was placed second.

Roque Online will now represent Angola at the Seedstars regional summit

This, while Onde, which has developed a localised addressing platform that provides vital information about all services in the country was placed third.

In all 10 startups were selected to pitch at the event (see this story).

The 10 pitched in front of a jury that included Banco Atlantico’s Nuno Veiga, IBM Angola country general manager Julia Carvalho and Kianda Hub head of information systems planning and development Joel Epalanga.

Other judges in the panel were Unitel head of innovation Juelson Bartolomeu, BCG principal Pedro Marecos, Banco Atlântico head of large corporate and institutional Hermínia Cardoso and Bodivo executive administrator Akiules Neto.

Roque Online will now represent Angola at the Seedstars Africa summit in Johannesburg in December (see this story). In addition, the startup will also get access to a three month investment readiness programme.

At the Africa summit, Roque Online will get a chance to win a spot to attend the Seedstars Global Summit in Switzerland where the winning startup will take home a $500 000 investment prize.