On December 5, 6 and 7, the Ukrainian capital will play host to the second edition of Seedstars CEE Summit, the annual international technology and entrepreneurship forum for emerging markets and fast-growing startup scenes.
The event will bring together pre-selected startups from eleven CEE countries, as well as mentors, investors and corporates from across the continent.
With over 600 attendees expected, the summit will feature a two-day startup bootcamp, an ecosystem tour and an investor day. The event will culminate on December 7 with pitches of 10 selected startups, as well as keynotes and panel discussions.
The agenda will include three blocs:
- The Conference, which will offer a variety of keynotes, informal chats and panel discussions addressing a wide range of emerging market specific challenges over a number of different industries. These include edtech, energytech, agtech, fintech, healthtech, civic tech, among others.
- The 2-day invite-only Bootcamp for 22 startups to work with world-class local and international mentors on improving their business models, growth strategy and mastering the investor pitch. In addition, this year the entrepreneurs may be selected for the Seedstars Growth program, a seed investment that comes together with a 15-week acceleration program for early stage startups.
- The Investor Forum will feature startup pitches of ten selected teams and one-on-ones with the most prominent investors of the region.
“We have been on a long and interesting journey when it comes to entrepreneurship and technology in emerging markets. As part of the Seedstars DNA, we want to be on the ground working directly with startups, corporates and other stakeholders. This is exactly the reason why we have been travelling to 88+ ecosystems globally this year,” said Igor Ovcharenko, Business Developer at Seedstars.
“We are very excited to be able to bring the entire network together in Ukraine in order to look into some of the opportunities of the continent, and explore how technologies can rapidly improve the current status quo in emerging markets worldwide,” he added.
The Summit is organized by the global seed-stage startup competition for emerging markets Seedstars World and hosted by local ambassador organisation Creative Space Chasopys in strategic partnership with Omidyar Network in order to impact startup ecosystem in Ukraine and CEE. The event is also supported by the embassy of Switzerland in Ukraine.
Last year, the conference took place in Astana, Kazakhstan and gathered 450 attendees, 18 startups, 38 mentors and speakers with 122 one-to-one meetings held during the event.
Seedstars is a global organization based in Switzerland with its activities in over 88 countries around the world. Its mission is to impact people’s lives in emerging markets through entrepreneurship and technology. Its main goal is to develop and/or foster startup ecosystems by connecting, building and investing into driven entrepreneurs. The Seedstars group includes Seedstars World, a worldwide startup competition; Seedstars Growth, a four month virtual acceleration program; Seedspace, a network of coworking and co-living spaces and Seedstars Academy, a six months program to train aspiring local entrepreneurs to build sustainable businesses.
