On 26th October 2016, Seedstars World (a global startup competition for early-stage tech startups) was held. While a number of startups contended in the program, only 17 were shortlisted. Out of them, Visualise VR, a VR/AR service provider in Nepal, was crowned the winner of Seedstars Kathmandu 2016.

Nick Feneck, Associate for Asia at Seedstars, and his team are responsible for bringing Seedstar World to Kathmandu. We caught up with Feneck for a brief interview to talk about his journey with Seedstars and to understand his perspective about Nepali startup ecosystem and the event.

How and why was Seedstars founded?

I used to work in a consultancy and found it rewarding to an extent, in a way stimulating and intellectually challenging too. But I never saw the impact it was having. So I went to a small high growth impact by working in a social enterprise in India and for a startup in the UK. That’s when the idea of combining the two and consulting a startup struck me, and that’s how it led me to Seedstars.

What is Seedstars trying to achieve?

What we’re basically trying to do is connect local talent to an international and global network of startups and investors. So the idea is that where we’re startup-centric, we try to support startup for the ecosystem to grow and flourish and bring them to our western, global investors so that they can invest in those startups. So it’s kind of a multilayered approach.

Why brought Seedstars to Nepal? What possibilities do you see here?

Nepal is a wicked place to be, both personally and professionally. It is a new market for us. For me, I love where there is frontier growth market. I think that’s where the market is and that’s where the opportunities are. There hasn’t been much catching up with technology in Nepal and among Nepalis and thus we think there’s a lot of room for growth and opportunity here. Any place where there’s frontier emerging market, there are opportunities. That is why we chose Nepal for Seedstars.

What made Visualise VR win?

There are a number of things. They have a very strong vision, and they're utilizing new technology, which is a great thing. For any business to grow, it needs a good business model, and we think Visualise VR has a very scalable model. Also, they have team dynamics and they understand the value of team and business model.