Meet the 9 MENA Startups Competing at the Seedstars Summit in Switzerland

Having roamed the world analyzing startup ecosystems across emerging economies, Seedstars is back with its annual summit, bringing over 65 startups from Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia and Africa to a massive stage. Hailing from the Middle East, nine gamechanging startups will take the stage, where they will pitch their business ideas for a chance to win up to one million dollars in investment.

Running its fifth anniversary, the summit spanns a wide variety of verticals, from Fin-tech to Ed-tech, Med/Bio-tech, Agri-tech, Insure-tech, Clean-tech and High/Nano-tech, they will reunite in the SwissTech Convention Center in Lausanne, Switzerland to compete for different prizes and the title of Seedstars Global Winner. The event, which last year crowned Arab startups Mindrockets and Asafeer Educational Technologies amongst its winners, will also attract startups enthusiasts, investors, business angels, government officials, incubators, NGOs and journalists from all over the world for an international and unique hands-on networking experience.

“What’s so interesting in the Arab world is the sheer volume of people with similar cultures and interests,” Seedstars co-founder Alisée de Tonnac told Startup Scene at the summit last year. “For a long time, we’ve been seeing entrepreneurs in the region trying to copy-cat what was happening in Europe or trying to move as quickly as possible move to the US; but finally we are seeing entrepreneurs understanding more and more that we have got huge problems to tackle in our own homes, and thanks to technology and the support of initiatives, we can start building real solutions for real pains in our region; that’s biggest potential,” she said. According to the organisation, 84 percent of the world’s population is located in emerging markets, which also represent 59 percent of global GDP. 

Participating at the summit next April, these nine killer Middle Eastern startups will be taking the stage:

- WNNA (Bahrain), an AI-driven contextual search that utilizes Big Open Data & Semantic Web to provide users with personalized recommendations & actions.

- Widebot (Egypt), the first bot builder platform in the MENA. Widebot allows anyone to build his/her own intelligent chatbot without any coding in only 10 minutes. 

- 3oun (Jordan), an on-demand mobile application that connects you with vetted handymen around you.

- General Senses (Kuwait), which is Kuwait’s leader in sensory and experiential technologies, with emphasis on pioneering VR, AR, & natural human interfaces.

- Vision in Motion (Lebanon), which provides businesses with insights on how their customers are moving, where they spend time and what they look at, from samples of their security cameras.

- Hooplacar (Morocco), whih connects brands with drivers to create on-vehicle advertising campaigns, live- monitored through GPS tracking and marketing KPIs

- Favizone (Tounisia), a personalization solution that enables retailers to deliver recommendations across all channels: e-shop, emails, and messaging app.

- Paym.es (Turkey), a secure shopping chatbot that helps users sell or purchase items on Messenger Apps.

- Junkbot (UAE), a Dubai-based startup which is pushing children to create their own robots through a DIY robotic kit. 

Joining the event will be speakers such as Gwendolyn Regina, who most recently spearheaded Mashable’s global expansion into Asia; award recipient, tech founder and CEO of AppsTech Rebecca Enonchong, representing Africa; Tallis Gomes, one of the most outstanding references for entrepreneurship in Latam and Gibran Huzaifah, the Seedstars World Alumni superstar and founder of eFishery, that will join the Summit on its 5th anniversary.

Video by @MO4Network's #MO4Productions.
Shot and edited by: Federico Corno.