Azerbaijan’s best startup selected
The winner of the international competition "Seedstars World", organized by the Center of Innovations and Entrepreneurship Barama of Azercell Telekom was announced.
The local round of the 6th Seedstars World competition held in Azerbaijan with support of PASHA Bank, the Center for Patents and Trademarks, the Embassy of Switzerland in Azerbaijan and the ADA University has completed successfully.
The event took place on June 8th, at ADA University, and 10 local startups selected by the jury panel presented their projects to win a title of “The Best Startup of Azerbaijan”. According to the regulations, startups with less than 2 years of operation, that have built a viable product, and with the potential of regional and global growth, were eligible to join the competition. Based on the voting by the juries, "Onbranch" by Elchin Eskerov was named “The Best Startup of Azerbaijan” for its innovative sustainable solution. "Tap2Doc" by Jeyhun Jafarov took second place, while a third place trophy was awarded to the start-up “Owbike” by Hasanaga Azad.
One of the main awards of the winner "Onbranch" is the opportunity to take part in the International Summit "Seedstars", which will be held in April 2019, in Switzerland. During the weeklong training program, our startup will meet with the winners of the national qualifying competitions "Seedstars World" from 65 fast-growing countries of the World, as well as potential investors and mentors. On the last day of The Summit, the local winners will present their projects to the 1,000th audience and compete for up to $ 1 million in equity investment.
It should be noted that technote.az and Barama Media have provided official media support to the project and Distribution Company Mi Mobile awarded the winners with special gifts.
Continuing on its World tour of fast-growing startup scenes in emerging markets, Seedstars World’s next stop is in Astana, Kazakhstan. Seedstars World is looking for smart startups that solve regional issues and develop profitable and viable products for the global market. Seedstars World is the World's largest startup competition in emerging markets. Seedstars’ goal is to place the spotlight on entrepreneurs from emerging markets, especially targeting solutions that align with UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Notably, Barama Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center of Azercell, which actively supports IT projects and helps such startups to build their business, is closely cooperating with Seedstars of Switzerland and is the local organizer of Seedstars Baku events.
The leader of the mobile communication industry, the largest taxpayer and the biggest investor of the non-oil sector of Azerbaijan Azercell Telecom LLC was founded in 1996. With 48% share of Azerbaijan’s mobile telecom market Azercell’s network covers 80% of the territory (excluding 20% of the occupied territories) and 99.8% of population of the country. Currently, 4.5 million subscribers choose Azercell services. Azercell has pioneered an important number of innovations in Azerbaijan, including GSM technology, advance payment system, mobile internet services, Metro coverage, 24/7 call centre service, 7 day/week Front Office service, M2M services, onestop-shopping approach Azercell Express offices, mobile customer services, Online Customer Care and Social Media Customer Care services, mobile e-signature service “ASAN Imza” etc. Azercell deployed first 4G – LTE services in Azerbaijan in 2012. According to the results of mobile network quality and wireless coverage mapping surveys by international systems, Azercell’s network demonstrated the best results among the mobile operators of Azerbaijan. Azercell is the only company in Azerbaijan and CIS region which has been awarded Gold Certificate of International “Investors in People” Standard.