Innovative competition sees startups compress a pitch into a tweet

Pitching your startup isn’t easy. You’ve got to be concise and able to say what you do and why you should be given funding in as few words as humanly possible. But, forget about elevator pitches, what would happen if you had to do it in a 140 characters or fewer?

That’s exactly what angel investment group AngelHub decided to find out when it held its recent #Twitch competition. The competition saw startups pitching themselves via Twitter for a chance at winning a ticket to Tech4Africa, a top African tech conference.

Here’s the winning tweet:

No paper. No red tape. No problem. Online Legal is the quick and easy way to get your company up & running. onlinelegal.co.za. #Twitch

— Online Legal (@onlinelegalsa) September 24, 2012

In addition, the winners will attend the AngelHub Ignite workshop at Tech4Africa with mentors from VC, Deloitte, IBM and top entrepreneurs. They also have the opportunity to pitch to the Tech4Africa audience and an esteemed judging panel for the main prize, if they are among the finalists.

The competition’s “African Solution” category was won with the following tweet:

Online portal where patients w/ chronic diseases are able to register, to get the medicine delivered to them, saving them costs. #Twitch

— afroman makgalemela (@afro_swit) September 24, 2012

The winner receives a paid for seat at an AngelHub Founders Dinner — a gathering of top SA entrepreneurs — in either Johannesburg or Cape Town.

The third and final category called the “Most Outrageous” was won with the following tweet:

#Twitch @angelhubza The entire school curriculum in an app for free. #outrages

— Erin Walker (@ErinChampWalker) September 23, 2012

As with the previous category, the prize is also a seat at the AngelHub Founders Dinner.

You can see the other “Twitches” and AngelHub’s pitch deliberation on its Storify page.