Georgian ecological startup qualifies for Switzerland competition

A promising Georgian startup that encourages the planting of trees has won a national competition and will soon present the business to a global audience in Switzerland.

New business Treepex won the Seedstars World competition in Tbilisi, Georgia. Seedstars is a global organisation based in Switzerland with activities in more than 50 countries. It offers a global seed-stage startup competition for emerging markets and fast-growing startup scenes.

For Treepex, winning the local competition was only the beginning of the race. The two young Georgian men behind the business will next year attend the Seedstars Summit in Switzerland and compete for up to $1 million USD in equity investment.

Who are the winners?

Treepex is co-founded by two young Georgian men and aims to involve private people and organisations in a green campaign that plants trees in Georgia’s Protected Areas.

If someone buys a product with Treepex logo it means a tree will be planted in their name somewhere in Georgia.

All items displaying a Treepex also features a unique QR code; entering this code in a Treepex free mobile application will mean a tree is planted and cared for at one of three Protected Areas in Georgia - the Tusheti Protected Landscape, Ajameti Managed Reserve or Borjomi Forest.

When a tree is planted on a person’s behalf, the donor is notified on the Treepex App and receives an email of a photo of the tree with their nameplate as well as its GPS coordinates. If donors ever travel to the Protected Areas of Georgia they can visit the tree they helped plant.

Organisters of the Seedstars’ Tbilisi competition said Treepex was selected as the best startup in Gerogia for "its unique approach to combine green incentive programs and corporate social responsibility”.

We r excited 2 have @treepex as our inaugural winner at #sswtbilisi.Congrats 2 Lingwing & Masavali for coming 2 & 3 pic.twitter.com/xJ4FM8hmKx

— Seedstars (@Seedstars) June 11, 2016

Treepex will participate at the global Seedstars Summit, taking place in Switzerland in March 2017. The event is a weeklong training program that gives participants the opportunity to meet the other 60 national winners, as well as investors and mentors from around the world.

Treepex was one of 12 startups that pitched their business ideas in front of an international jury in Tbilisi.

A startup named Lingwing, a self-learning system for languages to serve the annual $5 billion e-learning market, placed second in the Tbilisi competition. Third place went to Mosavali, which provides farmers in emerging markets with learning, decision support and interaction with the agricultural value chain.

The 12 startups chosen to compete in the final phase of the Tbilisi event were selected out of 50 initial startups applicants.

This was the first time Seedstars came to Georgia.