Seed tech investor reveals SA candidates
Venture capital fund, 88mph, says it has selected nine local start-ups for its accelerator programme for 2013.
88mph makes investments in early stage mobile-web companies targeting the African market, focusing purely on ideas with potential to scale across Africa.
The group launched its three month accelerator programme in South Africa last year, aiming to assists start-ups by providing them with investment, access to business networks and the know how to quickly grow their businesses.
The group describes its recruitment process as “vigorous” to ensure that the best talent is found. And following three months of vetting 400 applicants they were successfully narrowed down to nine “fascinating start-ups that solved a range of interesting problems from adrenaline junkies to streaming African content”.
“We had a large number of start-ups that applied and had the task of choosing the best. We chose start-ups we thought would benefit most from the programme; they are all web mobile start-ups, so only require seed money and a large network of mentors to get their businesses up and running,” said Kresten Buch founder of 88mph.
The selected few
The selected start-ups include:
- Online electronics store CableKiosk;
- Action sports online community marketplace, Adrenalin Hunter;
- Online auction platform, Liquid Crunch;
- Online search directory for the construction industry Near a Builder;
- Online property connections platform The Massive;
- Real time energy consumption monitor Homebug; and
- Pay-per-view video streaming service Wabona.
According to 88mph, the start-ups now have three months to ensure that they are ready for Demo day on the 26 April, where they will showcase their achievements to potential investors.
88mph has already invested in a number of firms in Kenya, at a price of up to $24,000 per start-up for an equity stake of 6% -18%.
Regarding the company’s name, in the cult sci-fi film, Back to the Future, the Delorean was required to reach a speed of 88mph before it could go back in time.
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