Five SA startups prepare to jet off to Kingson Capital’s Silicon Valley bootcamp

SA venture capital firm Kingson Capital today announced the names of the five SA tech startups that it will send to Silicon Valley next week as part of its first Silicon Valley bootcamp.

In August last year, in partnership with Akro Accelerate, Kingson Capital held the inaugural Kingson Akro Pitch Event in Cape Town.

At the pitching event 20 pre-selected tech startups were given the opportunity to pitch their businesses to a panel of experts, including the Kingson team (see this story).

At the event 10 startups were selected to pitch again, and with input from Kingson’s Silicon Valley startup advisor, Paul Kallmes, five startups were selected.

The five SA startups are expected to access valuable networking opportunities and business advice at Kingson Capital’s Silicon Valley bootcamp

In a statement today Kingson Capital said the five will travel to the US this Friday (17 January) to attend the two-week bootcamp.

The five startups are:

Flamelink, founded by Marsh Middleton and Andrew McElroy, is a real-time, headless content management system for Firebase – Google’s mobile and web app development platform. It is built for coders and content managers, and creates a simple interface between the user and Firebase.

Eevly, created by Sifiso Vundla, is an interactive content aggregation platform that allows content creators (video creators, musicians, vloggers, podcasters, game streamers, illustrators) to connect with their audience, reach new viewers and plug into various brand partners – all in one content network.

iMpilo, founded by Kopano Mere, is a peer-to-peer knowledge and skill sharing platform for health professionals.

Khoyn, co-founded by Victory Matibiri and Tami Chipika, is a social reselling platform for individuals, companies, wholesalers and more. Users don’t need to hold stock, as the platform works on a drop-ship basis and no investment is required to start selling. This approach is uniquely African, as social selling is hugely popular and conventional e-commerce is still relatively small.

ParkUpp is an innovative parking platform, co-founded by Palesa Moloi and Michael Savvides, the platform connects people who would normally have to park on the street with landlords and owners who have a surplus of off-street parking.

The bootcamp kicks off this Monday (20 January) and includes meetings with leading Silicon Valley experts on everything from startup scaling and implementation to social-media marketing and team dynamics.

The five startups are expected to access valuable networking opportunities, one-on-one mentorship and valuable advice on how to plan, develop and execute on their business strategies.

Daily classroom-style sessions will be interspersed with networking events, and valuable reflection time to ensure the startups receive the full benefit of the experience.

The two-week programme will conclude with a pitch event in the centre of San Francisco’s financial district, where the startups will be given the opportunity to pitch to a panel of US investors.

Follow the progress of the bootcamp on Kingson Capital’s LinkedIn page.

Read more: Akro Capital, Kingson Capital to send 10 winning startups to US bootcamp

Feature image: Patrick Nouhailler via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).