“They tried to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds”

Seedstars World, the largest seed-stage startup competition for emerging markets and fast-growing startup scenes, hosted its Manama round on September 2nd and 5th with the support of Local Organizer CH9.

On 2 September 2019, Seedstars hosted a dynamic training workshop for entrepreneurs. The topics revolved around Investment Readiness and the Art of the Pitch.

The former training is one in which the entrepreneurs got a snapshot of the diversity of points tackled in Seedstars Investment Readiness Program: team, talent, advisors, product, market, technology, revenue, growth, financial, performance management, legal and administrative aspects of startups as well as fundraising.

The latter training, on the other hand, focused more on structure and communication. It builds on the importance of pitching in an organized way, structuring the arguments, formulating a clear proposition and demand. To further reinforce this, Francesca Bombassei, VC analyst at Seedstars, has also worked with the entrepreneurs on their voice toolbox and body language while pitching.

In addition, the participants had the opportunity to work closely with experts from the market: Ali Abussaud and Hussain Almarhoon from Hala VC, Paul Lalley and Marwa Aleskafi from Brinc, Pakiza Abdulrahman from Bahrain EDB, Subah Aljalahma from Ministry of Industry, Commerce & Tourism; in addition to, Trey Goede from Wa’ed.

Based on the feedback of the mentors and an analysis of the startups’ applications, the Seedstars team shortlisted the top eight seed-stage startups who pitched on September 5th for the opportunity to compete at the Seedstars Summit, which annually takes place in Switzerland where they will get the chance to win up to USD 500,000 in equity investments and other prizes.

The local winners were chosen for their innovative sustainable solutions in their different fields. The 1st winner of the competition was Hayatech, a B2B SAAS software that aims to build an ecosystem around wellness.

In second place came Lazy Wait, a DoubleSided-Referral program with an integrated gratification wallet which provides businesses with a loyal customer base who then act as marketeers.

The third place was taken by Envo App, a platform that sets up manages and discovers events. The list of the Finalists also included: EXPRESSbase, Offerpedia, Supplify S.P.C., Thawani Technology, and WoneSupport Technologies.

The Main Partners of the Seedstars Manama event were The Embassy of Switzerland in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain with the attendance of Pascal Raess, Head of the Swiss Mission to Bahrain as well as Humbert Buemi, Honorary Consul of Switzerland in Bahrain.

Community partners such as Bahrain Development Bank, Startup Bahrain, Flat6Labs and local media partner Startup MGZN contributed as well to the success of the event.

The list of the jury members included Francesca Bombassei from Seedstars World, Hassan Haider from 500 Startups and Haider Al Mosawi from Sirdab Lab who is also Seedstars Kuwait City Ambassador.

Haider in addition to the other Seedstars Ambassadors from KSA, Khalid Al Mahfouz from Badir and Maryam Alsaegh from CH9 spoke on a panel titled “Scaling up in the GCC; Advice for Entrepreneurs”. The event also featured various keynotes from Dr. Simon Galpin, Managing Director of Bahrain EDB and Mohamed Altawash, the Chairman of CH9.