PIVOT East aims to catalyze the growth of mobile startups, so as to amplify and consolidate the gains of East Africa’s Mobile developer and entrepreneurship ecosystem.  The key objective for this year’s event is “to facilitate discovery of the next wave of high potential mobile startups in the region.” The competition has five categories which are; Mobile Finance, Mobile Enterprise, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Society and Mobile Utility. Each category will feature five finalists who will pitch to an audience of Investors, Development Partners, Government Representatives, Telecom Operators and other key mobile industry players from East Africa. The five category winners will attract investment from the m:lab, who are the organizers of the competition. 25 finalists in the competition will receive training, coaching, and mentorship on how to arrive at repeatable and scalable business models. The finalists will also receive training and coaching on how to pitch to investors. PIVOT East is the primary route for startups to secure support through the m:lab’s residential and virtual incubation programs. Eligibility criteria to participate in PIVOT East 2014:
  • Participating startups must be domiciled in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Somalia or DR Congo
  • Entries to the competition will be considered to be startups as per the universal definition of a “startup”* or a startup company (*as done below)
  • Participating startups must indicate details of at least two members of their team in their application profile
  • Companies that reached final 25 lists of PIVOT 2011, PIVOT 2012 and PIVOT 2013 may not compete with products/services previously submitted for the competition, the judging panel will have discretion to disqualify entries in breach of this requirement.
  • Competitors selected to the final 25 list must have set up a legal entity (business name, limited company etc) for their business by 15th May 2014. Competitors with legal entities already set up will have an added advantage at all judging stages.
  • Decisions of the judging committees at all competition stages will be final.
DEADLINE: April 11, 2014 Apply here: http://startups.pivoteast.com/ Have questions, Email: pivot@mlab.co.ke