The second edition of the Burning Heroes (BH) Africa Startup Awards, hosted by the Burning Heroes (BH) Founders Association, is now accepting applications. The event seeks to facilitate connections between startups and investors.

As part of its objective to ensure that brilliant founders from all over the world have equal access to opportunities, the Burning Heroes Founders Association is hosting the competition. The goal of all association events is to bring together experts, investors, and media in a collaborative and non-profit setting, bringing together founders.

Nine exceptional startups were selected as winners and awarded various prizes at the first-ever BH Africa Startup Awards in 2023. The distinguished judges hail from prominent tech companies and venture capital firms, including Meta, AWS, Flat6Labs, Savant, Plug and Play, Katapult, and Starta VC. The event featured more than 80 startups from around the continent.

Thirty startups in their early stages will have the chance to pitch virtually to a group of venture capitalists and accomplished tech entrepreneurs from Africa and Europe as part of BH Africa. Mobility, prop-tech, climate, agri-tech, fintech, insurtech, space-tech, ed-tech, and AI for good are some of the contest categories. Prizes include exposure in the media, one-on-one consultations with industry professionals, exclusive discounts and coupons from BH Africa’s business partners, introductions to venture capitalists, and access to our private community.

You can submit your application here until April 1st: https://africa.burningheroes.com/

Read also: MEST Africa opens applications for startup pitch competition

BH Africa Startup Awards will give start-ups the chance to shine 

In January 2024, the Burning Heroes Founders Association announced that campus-based start-ups, pre-seed start-ups with market validation and product prototypes, and seed start-ups would be able to participate in the competition. 

African start-ups will have the chance to shine in this competition, which will aid in the development of a region with enormous potential.

According to the organisers, the competition is a component of the Burning Heroes Founders Association’s objective to ensure that brilliant founders have equal opportunities to pursue opportunities around the world. Designed to bring together experts, investors, and media, the association’s events are always collaborative and free of charge.

Following the BH Startup Awards in August 2022, the association has now launched BH Africa. Over a hundred new businesses and twenty investors came together for the awards. There were nine American, German, Kenyan, Russian, and Singaporean startups that took home the hardware.

Now we’re shifting our attention to Africa as a promising continent for VC investments. A key to unlocking local value creation and employment on the continent could lie in leveraging the potential of tech start-ups, according to Victor Aneleh, programme manager for Africa at the Burning Heroes Start-up Award.

Global Startup Awards Africa announces winners

Statista reports that the value of early-stage funding on the continent saw a significant increase starting from 2014. This shows that the entrepreneurial ecosystem for technology start-ups in Africa has matured, which is great.

The Burning Heroes Startup Awards have the backing of prominent American and European partners. Among these are the Stanford Entrepreneur Club, 500 Global, APX.VC, Techstars, and Starta VC.

With judges from Meta, AWS, Flat6Labs, Savant VC, The Delta, OnePay S.A. (SisPay), Africa: The Big Deal, Impact Rooms, Fund The Gap, AfricArena, Katapult VC, Naspers Labs, and many more, the Africa Edition promises to be an exciting event.

BH Africa is giving 30 of the continent’s early-stage startups a chance to present online to a panel of venture capitalists and accomplished tech founders from across Africa and Europe.