So, who these Funding Corporations, Entities, Institutions and Organisms are looking for?
These Funding Corporations, Entities, Institutions and Organisms ARE targeting African technology-enabled startups that are at the MVP or traction stage, with particular interest in ecosystems that have historically attracted less venture capital.
Priority areas include: → Artificial Intelligence → Fintech → Health Tech → Climate Tech → Space Technology → Digital Infrastructure
But your sector alone will not get you the check.
These Funding Corporations, Entities, Institutions and Organisms are targeting African technology-enabled startups that are at the MVP or traction stage, with particular interest in ecosystems that have historically attracted less venture capital.
Priority areas include: → Artificial Intelligence → Fintech → HealthTech → ClimateTech → Space Technology → Digital Infrastructure But your sector alone will not get you the check.
Applicants for Financing and Investments will be assessed around four major areas
1. Your Business Model
Can you clearly explain how the company makes money, and how that model can become significantly larger?
2. Regional Growth Potential
These Funding Corporations, Entities, Institutions and Organisms ARE looking beyond a startup that can succeed in one city or one country.
If you STARTUP is in Morocco, for example, can your model eventually work in Ghana, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Rwanda or other African markets?
3. Your Founding Team
Investors are not only investing in your product.
They are investing in the people who must execute the plan.
4. Measurable Impact
- What changes because your company exists?
- Customers served?
- Jobs created?
- Businesses digitized?
- Financial access expanded?
- Infrastructure enabled?
Don’t simply write “we are creating impact.”
Show the numbers.
Your job is to make the investor understand:
Where you are → Where you are going → What milestone you need to reach → Why your team can get there → And how their capital accelerates that journey.
Healthcare outcomes improved?
Carbon emissions reduced?
DASF combines investment capital with structured support designed to help startups reduce execution risk and reach milestones required for larger institutional funding rounds. That means your application should not only answer:
“Why should INVESTORS AND FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS invest in us?”
It should also answer:
“What will €300K–€2M help us accomplish that we cannot accomplish at our current level of capital?”
That is the difference between submitting an application… …and actually building an investment case. If you’re considering applying, prepare these before you start:
- ✓ A clear investment narrative
- ✓ Your current traction and key metrics
- ✓ Revenue/business model evidence
- ✓ A realistic regional expansion strategy
- ✓ A strong founding-team story
- ✓ Your measurable impact indicators
- ✓ The specific milestones the investment will finance
- ✓ A clear explanation of how the business gets to the next institutional round.
And please — don’t wait until the application opens to start preparing your story.
Operational Stage & Market Alignment
How do you describe the current validation stage of your startup *
- 1 – Ideation & Conceptual Modeling
- 2 – Minimum Viable Product (MVP Built & Tested)
- 3 – Seed Stage (Initial operational deployment)
- 4 – Commercial Product Launch (Live market interaction)
- 5 – Growth Stage (Systematic customer acquisition)
- 6 – Expansion Stage (Scaling across global digital avenues)
- 7 – Maturity / Strategic Corporate Restructuring
Here is a direct comparison between the Previous Google Form Addenda and the Active Request Institutional Access Form (Founders / Cluster 1).
This analysis identifies gaps, overlaps, and structural improvements to optimize the form for mobile readability, clarity, and fluid user experience.
Comparison & Gap Analysis
| Field Category | Previous Google Form Addenda | Active Request Institutional Access Form | Gap Analysis & Recommendation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industry & Sector | Contains 14 specific industry/sector options + 5 key technology options (AI, Cloud, IoT, Wireless, Big Data). | Contains 12 broader industry verticals (e.g., FinTech, AgTech, CleanTech, AI/ML, SaaS). | Gap: The active form combines industry and technology into one dropdown, whereas the addenda separates core sector from underlying technology stack. Recommendation: Keep the broad vertical selection, but add a secondary multi-select for Key Technologies Developed/Utilized to capture tech depth. |
| Operational & Stage Alignment | Captures a 7-stage validation continuum (Ideation → MVP → Seed → Launch → Growth → Expansion → Restructuring) + an open narrative for specific operational activities. | Splits operational evaluation into two separate dropdowns: Current/Target Financial Stage and Product Development Stage (Concept → MVP → Beta → Launch → Scaling). | Gap: The active form captures financial and product maturity well, but lacks the structured capture of specific daily operational activities. Recommendation: Retain active form stages, but add the short narrative prompt for Specific Type of Operations Involved. |
| Legal & Entity Verification | Collects Local Registry ID, National Tax ID, Upload of Official Certificate of Incorporation (up to 5 image uploads with JPEG/PNG guidance), and International Institutional Standing Class. | Asks for Legal Entity Status, Incorporation Year, Incorporation Country, Legal Entity Type Name, Founder Equity %, and Vesting Agreement. | Gap: The active form captures high-level corporate structure and equity, but lacks actual verification ID fields and document file upload capabilities. Recommendation: Integrate the 3 verification identifier fields and file upload mechanism from the addenda directly into the active form’s Legal section. |
| Institutional Objectives | Asks for intended outcomes, objectives, and commitment upon signing/joining Taskforce 1 Startup. | Contains an optional Profile Summary field at the very end. | Gap: “Optional Profile Summary” does not explicitly prompt the founder for their mandate or strategic alignment with Taskforce 1 Startup. Recommendation: Rename/frame the final narrative field as Institutional Profile Summary & Mandate Note with clear prompt guidance. |
- Dr. Said El Mansour Cherkaoui
- Taskforce 1 Startup
- Global Executive Reports
- Global InTech Consulting
- Africana Business Leaders
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