Energy, Mobility and Agriculture Innovation program
Finding innovative solutions to support lower-income communities in Africa
About The Program
Seedstars and Shell Foundation have joined forces to look for sustainable, scalable and innovative working towards access to energy, sustainable agriculture* and mobility.
The objective of this program is to support, catalyse and train early-stage (seed) tech startups addressing challenges related to access to energy (household energy, energy for business, energy nexus), sustainable agriculture (value chain innovations improving access to finance, technology, market or knowledge) or sustainable mobility (safe rural and last-mile mobility for people and goods) in Africa.
Application Criteria
All applications must comply with the following criteria
The startup must have an existing solution with less than 4 years of existence (average 2 y.o.)
Must act within the following sectors: Mobility, Transportation, Energy, & Agriculture*
Must be an early-stage startup (seed stage with a MVP - minimum viable product)
Must have operations based in Africa
Must show initial traction and/or be generating revenue
Have raised less than $1M USD in investment to date
Boost your impact on African communities and make agriculture, mobility and energy industries more sustainable.
Program Benefits
Selected Startups will receive
Access to a 3-month investment-readiness program that includes:
✔ Investment-readiness training.
✔ Group mentoring based on sector.
✔ 1on1 mentoring with a dedicated expert that has been selected based on individual startup needs.
✔ Identification by the Shell Foundation for potential funding opportunities.
✔ Leverage of the human resources and knowledge available within the pro-bono network of the Shell Foundation.
Timeline
19 November 2020
Launch Of Open Call
20 December 2020
Close Of Applications
January 2021
Announcement of Selected Startups
Feb - April 2021
Investment Readiness Program
Your ideas can change the world!
About Us
Shell Foundation
Shell Foundation (SF) is a UK-registered charity, founded by Shell in 2000, that creates and scales business solutions to enhance access to energy and affordable transport. They exist to serve the low-income communities most affected by these issues.
Seedstars is an investment holding company founded in Switzerland in 2012 with the mission to impact people's lives in emerging markets through entrepreneurship and technology.
* Businesses that apply in this category under this specific program are innovations that accelerate agriculture value chains in ways that improve livelihoods at scale, for example improving farmers' access to markets, knowledge, finance or production/processing mechanisms. For instance, we are looking specifically for ventures working on solar irrigation, agri-insurance or tech-enabled logistics linking farmers and SMEs. On the contrary, we will not consider applications of food-processing businesses.
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