Seedstars International Ventures Research
Investment Thesis
Seedstars International Ventures (SIV) is the emerging-market seed fund of Seedstars, a Swiss group founded in 2012 that also runs startup competitions, accelerator programs, coworking hubs and several other funds. The fund's argument is a capital gap: emerging markets excluding China hold about 70% of the world's population and about 30% of global GDP but attract roughly 5% of venture capital. SIV backs "B2B founders bold enough to move the GDP needle" and describes its edge as knowledge arbitrage, bringing lessons from one market to cap tables in another.
Investment Themes
The site names three themes, all B2B and all about digitalisation:
- Financial services: payments, credit, banking, insurance and infrastructure.
- Market enablement: marketplaces, e-commerce enablers, supply chain and cross-border trade.
- Productivity: vertical SaaS, workflow automation, data and analytics, and AI tools.
The portfolio logos on the group's funds page also show healthtech, edtech, logistics, proptech and energy companies, so past investing has been wider than the current B2B framing.
Stage Focus
Pre-seed and seed. The fund reports 52% of its allocation going to pre-seed. A small number of later rounds appear in third-party data (a few Series A entries), most likely follow-on or later-entry deals.
Check Size
First ticket of $150K to $350K, with an average first check of about $212K. Follow-on tickets go up to $500K. Target ownership is 3% to 5%, and the site's tagline is "5% ownership. 100% value add."
Lead Tendency
Both. The firm says it can "catalyse or follow" a round and collaborates with other funds. Recent deals in third-party data show it participating alongside a lead, for example Gigmile's seed (led by ENZA Capital) and Matbook's seed (with Fluent Ventures).
Fund Status and Recent Activity
The fund snapshot shows $19.24M deployed of $29.45M, 139 total investments (13 in the last 12 months) and a portfolio NPS of 81. SIV II launched in 2022 with a $20M first close toward a $30M target; early limited partners included the IFC, Visa and the Rockefeller Foundation's Zero Gap Fund. At about two-thirds deployed it is still investing, though Tracxn lists only three new investments in 2025 (Gigmile, Matbook, Lorien Finance) and none logged yet in 2026. Fund I invested in about 81 companies across 32 countries. The group also manages Seedstars Africa Ventures I (a $42M first close in December 2024) and, with iGravity, the SECO Startup Fund (January 2025).
Portfolio Highlights
- OmniRetail (Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast): backed in 2019, raised a $20M Series A in 2025. The firm's featured success story.
- Webflow is listed by Tracxn as a unicorn in the portfolio. Not confirmed by the firm's own site, so it is not loaded.
- Exits per Tracxn: Eazy Digital (acquired by Igloo, July 2026), SmartCrowd (July 2025), Orcas (January 2024), myrobin.id (February 2023).
- Other names on the group's funds page include Democrance, Jingle Pay, Lipa Later, Raenest, Fuzu, Pezesha, Chaka, Baubap, Dastgyr and Shezlong.
Team
- Charlie Graham-Brown, General Partner, Geneva. Engineer and CFA charterholder; joined the founding team in 2014.
- Konstantin Hapkemeyer, Partner, Africa, Lisbon. With Seedstars since 2018.
- Nataly Yousef, Principal, MENA and India, Dubai.
- Samantha Batista, Principal, LATAM, Sao Paulo. Co-founded the whoisraising.vc newsletter.
- Pun "Twwo" Jaruthassanakul, Principal, Asia, Bangkok. Formerly Investment Director at 500 Startups Thailand.
- Malgorzata "Mal" Filipowska, Head of Portfolio and Platform, Doha. Formerly at Flat6Labs.
- Pierre-Alain Masson, IC member and Seedstars co-founder and CEO.
- IC advisors: Ian McNish, Pritesh Gupta, Fady Abdel-Nour (Antler Elevate).
- A bench of executive advisors (ex-Stripe, Salesforce, Zendesk, Uber, nuBank, PandaDoc, Microsoft) supports portfolio go-to-market.
Decision Process
The team is regional: each principal or partner leads deals for a geography, and an investment committee that includes the CEO and outside advisors decides. The process is described as efficient and transparent. Founders apply through an Airtable pitch form on the fund site.
Founder Preferences
B2B founders in emerging markets, often first-time and often outside the usual hubs. Value-add is practical: executive advisors on sales, growth and PLG, a portfolio platform led by Mal Filipowska, and the wider Seedstars network of competitions and programs.
Geographic Focus
Over 100 companies across about 40 countries in Africa, Latin America, MENA, Asia and Central and Eastern Europe. Tracxn's largest counts are the United States (6, mostly companies with emerging-market operations), Egypt (5) and Mexico (5).
Portfolio Data Caveats
The fund's own portfolio page is a Wix shell with no company list. Company names in this record come from logo captions on the Seedstars group's funds page, which covers the group's whole portfolio (International, Africa and Youth Wellbeing funds), so a few names may belong to a sibling fund. Domains and stages are left empty because the page gives neither.