Deadline: July 17, 2019
Are you a start-up working towards the SDGs and are based in Africa? Are you working at the cutting edge of innovation to solve real-life problems? Is your start-up innovation related to Healthcare, Life Sciences, Performance Materials and Merck’s innovation focus areas? Apply for the Merck Make-It Africa Startup Program 2019.
The Joint Start-up Program, a collaboration between Merck Accelerator with Tech Entrepreneurship Initiative “Make-IT in Africa” is your gateway to quickly explore and validate the potential for co-creating and working in the health sector especially in partnership with Merck. Apply to get a chance to work on a collaboration project with existing Merck’s innovation projects. The program will last from August 5 – November 27, 2019.
Focus Areas
- Digital Solutions in the Healthcare Sector
- Bio-Sensing and Interfaces
- Liquid Biopsy Technologies
Benefits
This is your gateway to quickly explore and validate the potential for co-creating and working in partnership with Merck and profit from the broad network of Make-IT in Africa. In addition, they have a few perks for the best start-ups:
- Business Case Development:
- Fully paid bootcamp in Nairobi for top 20 start-ups (5 per each region) to ideate and develop business cases for collaboration with Merck
- Continuous business support, technical support and online mentoring and coaching
- Scale-Up Diagnostics and Design for Scale Training
- Ecosystem Learning Journey:
- Spotlight and exhibition at the South Africa Innovation Summit in Cape Town for 4 finalists
- Spotlight and Demo Day at Merck in South Africa for 4 finalists
- Spotlight and exhibition at MEDICA conference in Dusseldorf for 4 finalists
- Corporate Collaboration: A fully paid trip to Merck Innovation Center at the HQs to pitch for a collaboration project with Merck for 4 finalists
- Connect and Community: Three meetups in each focus region will be conducted to connect with a rich community of founders and innovators in your region going through the same challenges, as you exchange ideas and build lifetime connections.
- Access to Make-IT Fellowship:
- Investor meetups
- Business opportunities
- Potential exposure measures
Eligibility
- Open to startups registered in an African country and operative for at least a year
- Have a business model with a focus on the SDG’s and a solution in the fields of Healthcare, Life Sciences, Performance Materials and other search fields such as Biosensing and Interfaces, and Liquid Biopsy Technologies
- Start-ups with at least 2 cofounders
- The team supports gender equality and diversity
- Applicants must be fluent in English
Application
For more information, visit Merck Make-It Africa.
