You don't have to take our word for it.

1. You don't have to agree with our rubric

An institution does not need to believe our 21 checkpoints are the only correct 21. It needs three things to be true, and all three are verifiable by reading the reports:

• The same checkpoints were applied to every venture.
• Every score carries written reasoning you can read and check.
• Nobody involved in the assessment had a stake in the outcome.

None of this requires trusting our judgement. It requires reading our output.

2. Where the rubric comes from

The criteria were derived from structured research into the publicly stated funding requirements of South African and African investors, development finance institutions and accelerators, alongside published ecosystem research. They were not invented by an AI.

The AI's role is narrow and deliberate: to apply that fixed, human-derived standard identically to every venture, removing the variance that comes from mood, relationship, fatigue or familiarity.

3. The whole rubric is public

All 21 checkpoints, all five dimensions and every threshold are published at /assessment. Nothing is hidden. Any institution can read the full criteria and disagree with them before engaging us.

Hidden criteria are what make assessment feel arbitrary. Ours are open.

4. Anyone can dispute an outcome — or a criterion

Any founder or institution may dispute an assessment outcome in writing. Any founder or institution may also dispute a criterion in the standard itself.

Where a genuine error is found, we correct it, and where the correction affects the rubric, we publish the change.

We think this is a stronger commitment than claiming to be right.