Seedstars

Charlie Graham-Brown is the General Partner overseeing Seedstars' investment activities. He built out the firm's fund platform, including Seedstars International Ventures and Seedstars Africa Ventures I, after joining from an investment-specialist background.

Seedstars sources through its own competition — a multi-country, multi-round startup competition that runs local events in over 90 emerging and frontier markets. Winners and participants feed into the firm's pipeline, operating as a persistent, bottoms-up origination network rather than a convention-based referral funnel.

Seedstars is an asset manager and operator, not a family office. It manages pooled venture funds, co-manages a Swiss government-backed startup fund, and runs adjacent program-management and corporate-venture mandates alongside a global entrepreneurship community and physical hubs.

The firm primarily makes direct seed-stage equity investments through its own venture funds, such as Seedstars International Ventures and the Africa-focused vehicle. It also operates co-investment structures and manages third-party mandates like the SECO Startup Fund, but it does not market itself as a fund-of-funds allocator.

Seedstars targets pre-seed and seed-stage companies across tech-enabled verticals. Its programs often work with very early-stage founders, while the venture funds focus on high-growth startups that have surfaced through the competition or community programs and are ready for initial institutional capital.

Seedstars does not publish an explicit exclusion list, but its portfolio and described activities concentrate on tech-enabled businesses across financial services, digital education, and other impact-aligned verticals. It does not appear active in deep tech or hardware-heavy sectors that require large upfront R&D budgets or long science-risk timelines.

In January 2025, iGravity and Seedstars were jointly appointed to manage the SECO Startup Fund, a Swiss government vehicle that supports entrepreneurship in developing countries. Seedstars' role marks a notable expansion from proprietary fund management into a direct government-linked mandate, alongside a recognized impact-investment partner.

Seedstars will co-invest alongside development-finance institutions and impact-aligned investors, illustrated by the Africa Ventures I close that included the African Development Bank and EIB Global. The firm's model is more structured around its own competition-to-capital pipeline, but it does open syndicates with institutional co-investors on a deal-specific basis.