Global Startup Awards receives nominations from ambassadors across the regions in addition to the public nomination forms that are published at the beginning of every season.

If you have been nominated, the person nominated you believes you meet the following criteria. You can increase your chances of being shortlisted and eventually winning by making sure you are nominated in the correct category.

If you have been nominated in the wrong category: Global Startup Awards Headquarters are not directly nominating the participants. It might happen from time to time that some nominations are a bit far from your reality. If you feel that the nomination is not really reflecting your current status, you are also free to nominate yourself, as our premise is that anyone can nominate anyone, anywhere.

Depending on the size of the region this number might differ. On average, we receive 3000-5000 applications per season per region.

To become a finalist or winner regionally or even globally is a very impressive accomplishment. Every year, the competition receives more than 30.000 nominations, so making it that far means you are among the best in the world. Based on our data, this recognition has directly influenced the finalists and winners' ability to raise money positively as it has created positive awareness towards clients, partner and talent. As a finalist or a winner, you also become part of our global alumni network, which gives access to exclusive events, investment opportunities and a global network.

You can read more about it here.

Participating in the competition is completely free of charge.

The process as a whole is depicted here. The milestones are as follows:

Candidates are nominated by ambassadors, by the public, or by themselves.
Candidates accept the invitation (sent to their inboxes) to the competition system and are forwarded to
- Create a profile if this is their first nomination.
- A new nomination is added to their already-existing profile
Complete all mandatory fields in all the questionnaires for all the categories they are applying/nominated to.
Click Save after each edition to their answers.
Make sure the word “finalized” appears under the name of the category.
Applications should be “finalized” before the deadline.
Only shortlisted startups/individuals get the results of their applications in their inboxes when announced.

The pitch deck is a document/presentation of the individual/company that the jury members will assess when they evaluate nominees. Pitch decks for categories like Ecosystem Hero & Diversity Role Model are more open for creativity and they can add what feels most relevant to the pitch deck based on the category criteria. For startups, the pitch deck can also be in the form of a presentation. All Pitch decks should be in PDF format, any page size, but in English.

Global Startup Awards currently recognizes three types of nominations: Startups, Individuals, and Support Entities. To be considered as one of them, check this page.

Individual-based categories are those where the winners are individuals and not startups/companies. They are rewarded for their contributions that they carried out. They still can be part/leaders of teams and their contributions can be carried out through that team. However, the winner is the individual and the criteria for such categories are as follows here.

Regional Finales, Continental Finales (Applies in Africa only) and Global Finales are three levels of the Award Shows that can conclude a season in the perspective level. These events, shall be held, are usually announced and communicated to the finalists via email and announced on the website of the regional/global competition website and social media.

The regional competition website if the competition is on the regional level. The global competition website (Global Startup Awards) if the competition is global.

When your company is registered to local authorities, they give you 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.

Yes, we often see that great applications come from someone the startup’s team.

Read more about the definition of legal presence here.

Depending on the region you are applying to. The timeline on the home page of the regional website will inform you when the “Nominations are Closed” and all applications should be finalized before that.

You can find your region below this section.