Here’s How Orange Corners Baghdad Evaluated the Startups in a Two-Days Pitch Decks for the 4th Cohort.

Each cohort, Orange Corners Baghdad organizes Pitch Deck days for the semi-finalists after the bootcamp. 

During these days, the startups take turns presenting their pitch decks to a panel of jury. Their presentations include materials of their business plans that they learned to put together during the bootcamp training days previously. 

The startups were evaluated based on a few points that help give a predictable overview of the business’s success. Like, is the business solving a real problem in the market? And is the business realistic and does it have a clear target market? 

After the pitch deck, 20 startups were selected to move on to the next round and enter the 6-months incubation program to start the training sessions.

The startups varied in their businesses, they focused on topics like:

• Agriculture

• Product-based

• Technical solutions

• Ecommerce 

• Food manufacturing

The jury panel included a variety of professionals to help cover a wide range of business sections. The jury included Mr. Mohammad Al-Hakim - Former General Manager of Careem Iraq and Jordan, Mohammad Jamal - R&D Manager at KAPITA, Ahmed Khalid -  Programs Manager at KAPITA, Abdulghany Al-Hassani, Investment Manager at GroFin.

We are excited to start this new cohort with the startups as they represent a group of talented, committed and ambitious young professionals. We also noticed a greater female participation in this cohort than the previous ones with %45 female founders, which only reads the great direction young Iraqi entrepreneurs are headed. 

About Orange Corners Baghdad:

Orange Corner’s Baghdad is an initiative of the Dutch Embassy in Baghdad. The economic priorities of the Netherlands in Iraq are agriculture, water and entrepreneurship. KAPITA supports the community of young entrepreneurs in Baghdad by building youth capacity, and developing successful businesses. We incubate 20 startups for six months: starting with providing a co-working space, training and developing their business, events and masterclasses, a positive environment and an opportunity for investment.