Ki, the winning startup will be flown to Geneva, Switzerland, to participate in a 3 day bootcamp and the Seedstars Final Event representing Lebanon as they compete for “Seedstars World Best Startup.” The winner will secure a $500,000 investment while pitching in front of a wide panel of European investors, in addition to receiving $20,000 worth of hosting services from Softlay and $60,000 work of global prize partners.
Ki, the only password manager that interacts with you, is basically an app that logs you in to your accounts and keeps you safe from hackers. For example, you get to work and you get to a close proximity to your laptop, Ki will access all your accounts for you. If you step away from your laptop, Ki will send you a notification asking you if you want to stay logged in or not. Moreover, it will change your password for you on a scheduled basis and takes the hassle out of two-factor authentications. The passwords are saved on your phone which simply logs in via location.
Seedstars World is an exclusive worldwide startup competition that has been taking place in over 30 cities in 2014 and Beirut was one of them. The aim of the competition is to find the best startup in emerging and fast-growing startup scenes such as Lebanon. The pitching event was exclusively sponsored by Banque du Liban and hosted by Lebanon’s first international startup conference, Banque du Liban Accelerate 2014. Banque du Liban has been supporting startups in Lebanon during the past couple of years, which in return has provided startups with a boost and made Beirut a strategic hub for them.
25 startups were selected to participate in the Lighting Round Pitch on the main stage on Thursday in addition to having a startup exhibition stand throughout the 2-day conference. The top 8 were selected to enter the Finalist Round on Friday during which they had 6 minutes to pitch. Ki was selected by the jury after a very tough round as “Seedstars Beirut Regional Winner.”
