This is really big news. Gareth Knight (Tech4Africa) conference has managed to persuade the Seedcamp guys (like Saul Klein, who is a SAffer) to bring the Seedcamp concept to South Africa.

For those of you not familiar with Seedcamp Week, you can read more about it on their site. But in a nutshell, it’s an intensive competition for startups, that happens in September in London. About 20 startups are selected, go through a rigorous presentation program and 5 winning teams are invested in, in return for a 5%-10% equity stake. The investment is between 30-50,000 pounds.

As with most competitions of this type, the real value is in the networking, exposure and mentoring, although the money is not to be sneezed at. There are over 400 mentors, with European connections, in the Seedcamp pool.

Seedcamp also runs mini seedcamps throughout Jan-June so that it can identify hot players to take part in the main event. South Africa is going to host an event like this, and this is a first for Africa. The winner will may get to participate in the main event in September, in London.

Gareth will begin taking applications mid June, and he will soon post more info on the Tech4Africa site. He is looking for 20 startups to participate in the local competition. Mentoring is going to be a huge part of the selection process, and the winner will be announced at the Tech4Africa conference.

I am particularly excited about this, because Crowdfund should have some exciting projects to enter into the competition (although not by mid June). Also, I see a lot of ideas that we cannot fund for various reasons, and it will be super to offer the entrepreneurs a chance of participating in this competition instead. And of course, we might spot some winning gems that don’t get to win, but that *we* can still fund.

Awesome.

(Gareth Knight is on Crowdfund’s board)