Q: What is the deadline for filling out application form?
A: The competition is a year long program, contact us for further details on application timelines

Q: I’ve been nominated! What now?
A: Once you have been nominated, you will receive and email from the Global Startup Awards (Please check your Spam/ Junk folder if you have not received it). Follow the link in the email, and complete the application form to finalize your entry.

Q: I’ve been nominated, which is great! However, the category is not the best fit for me/my company.
A: If you feel that your startup does not fit into the category you were nominated for, you are welcome to nominate yourself. To see the description and criteria of each category, visit our website, select your region and click on “Categories”.

Q: Do I need to fill out ALL the forms?
A: If you have been nominated for more than one category, you will need to fill out each form in the given categories.

The questions you have already answered will automatically be pre-filled. However, you will still need to answer a few category-specific questions before you submit.

Q:   I’ve been nominated, but I can’t find the email with the invitation.
A: Cannot seem to find this mail? Do not worry!

Go to competition.globalstartupawards.com, enter the email address you have been nominated with, and click on “Forgot password”. You will receive an activation email, which will allow you to generate a new password for your account and complete the application form.

Please feel free to contact us via email at info@africanstartupawards.com if you are still unable to finalise your application.

Q: Could you tell me who nominated us?
A: Startups can be nominated for any category, by anyone. Due to General Data Protection Regulations, we do not track who is nominating who. Furthermore, nominated companies/ individuals will NOT take part in the competition unless they clearly and proactively say so. All data from people who do not agree in participating will not be stored in our systems.

Competition Process

Q: May I have some more information about the competition process?

A: After the nominations have closed, there will be shortlisting. Up to 5 finalists will be selected from each category in each country and go through to the Regional Finals. From there, the Jury board members will review the applications and select the Regional winners. The Regional winners will then go through to the African Finale where the top startup from each category will be selected by another Jury board and announced. The African winners will go through to the Global Finale.

Profile management

Q: Can you change the email address for my nomination?

A: Unfortunately, you cannot change the email address of the entry point nomination. However, the issue is easy to solve:

You just need to go to our website, select your region and nominate yourself – It is really quick. You will then be able to fill in the correct information and the other nominations will be ignored.

Q: What does “Link to documentation or explanation for incorporation date” mean?

A: When your company is registered to local authorities, they give a certification of formation (or some document with a similar name), which proves that your company’s operations are fully legal and administered by the authorities. Just share the link of that document with us from your Drive/Cloud. If you don’t have a drive/cloud – you can make use of the free Google Drive option that you get access to if you have a gmail account.

Q: I don’t know what to upload as a Pitch-Deck.     

A: The Pitch Deck is for our Jury board to see. This is a space to “show off”. Imagine that our Jury members will have a very extensive application from your side, with all of the questionnaires.

The Pitch Deck is a short, colorful presentation of your team and products/services. We highly recommend a 5-7 pages PDF, or a very nicely put One-Pager. The only requirement is that it’s less than 10MB size.

Some companies have that already in the format of a “Presentation Proposal”, a “Sales Deck” or another document they show to partners. In this case, you can simply take out the “commercial” part (with prices, and proposals).

Pitch Deck needs to answer:

• How would you rate the main product and/or service of your startup based on the pain/demand it is solving?
• How would you rate the management team?
• How would you rate the performance of your startup based on the achievements and metrics in the past 12 months?
• [Growth Potential] How would you evaluate the competitor’s ability to grow the startup based on metrics, team, product/service, business model, market opportunity, valuation and investment raised?
• How would you rate the market opportunities of your startup to scale internationally?
• How would you rate your startup’s branding efforts across their media channels? (Website, SoMe, and others).
• How would you rate the accuracy of your startup’s work with the selected SDG goals?
• How would you rate your startup’s success in solving the selected SDG goals?
• How would you rate the innovativeness of your startup’s product/service?
• How would you rate the innovativeness of the competitor’s business model?
• How would you rate the innovativeness of your startup’s market access strategy?

How would you rate your startup’s usage and/or application of new technologies in the product/service?

• How would you rate your startup’s readiness in terms of intellectual property?
• How would you rate your startup’s willingness to take financial risks?
• How would you rate your startup’s readiness to undertake these financial risks?

STILL HAVE QUESTIONS? DO NOT HESITATE TO ASK US!

If you did not find the answer you have been looking for, do not hesitate to drop us an email, and we will try to get back to you as soon as we can!

info@africanstartupawards.com