Energy, Mobility and Agriculture Innovation Program

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, catalyze 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
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.