How to prove innovation if I'm applying through the business route?

A Global Talent Visa is designed for applicants with technical and business skills in the digital technology sector. According to the Tech Nation’s visa guide, you are eligible if you are:

• A technical applicant from a non-technical organisation;
• A non-technical applicant from a technical organisation;

Generally, a non-technical applicant from a non-technical organisation is not eligible to apply for a Global Talent Visa.

Technical applicants must demonstrate proven technical expertise with the latest technologies in use and deploying or exploiting a technology building technical infrastructure.

Non-technical (or Business applicants) must demonstrate a proven commercial, investment, or product expertise in building digital products or leading investments in product-led digital technology businesses.

To learn more about the difference in skills between technical and business applicants, read our blog post here.

Whether you chose to apply as a Business Applicant with an Exceptional Talent or an Exceptional Promise route, you can provide supporting documents to prove the optional innovation criterion.

As an Exceptional Talent (or a Leader) you have to provide a proven track record for innovation as a founder or senior executive of a product-led digital technology company or as an employee working on a new digital field or concept.

As an Exceptional Promise (or an Emerging Leader) you have to provide at least 1 example of innovation as a founder of a product led digital technology company or as an employee working on a new digital field or concept.

According to the Tech Nation’s guidelines, you can qualify for the innovation criterion if you are able to provide one of the following:

• Proof of the business you own along with a well-documented set of audited accounts along with financial projections for the ongoing year and articles of association
  

• Proof of local, national, or international sales you have made with a well-documented presentation of your distribution and sales channels (customer numbers for each country in which the company is operating, ranking of your distribution channels, and breakdown of when these sales were achieved for each channel)
  

• Documentation of the contract of employment that includes your salary details along with bonus, equity options, and history of all earnings
  

• Proof of a joint patent application along with links to Google Patents with a verifiable ID

• Proof highlighting the development and innovative side of the candidate (can be a well-known product in the market)

‍1) Innovative product. Tell the committee what makes your product one of a kind, what features it includes compared to the closest competitors, whether there are no other counterparts to your product in the country/market, etc.

2) Market traction. To prove the product is popular you need to focus on numbers. Show Tech Nation invoices, audited documents, other financial statements proving the company profitability and product popularity. In case there is no monetization, partnership agreements, grants, term sheets, and investment agreements will be the perfect evidence.

Hence, showing expert groups saw the potential of the product and supported it in some way. If your product is an app or a website, you can provide the analytics data (the number of users, visits and downloads).

3) Patents. Google Patents with a verifiable ID are the best-case scenario. However, if the media wrote about the product and mentioned directly that your company was the first on the market to offer such a product/solution, it would be even more beneficial.

The short answer – there is no great difference in evidence both tech and business applicants can provide to support the innovation criterion. However, there is a difference in the role of the applicants themselves.

Tech candidates are likely to have evidence showing they created the innovative product or were a part of the team who created the innovative product.

Business candidates are likely to have evidence showing they thought of an idea for the innovative product, managed the team who created the innovative product or invested into the innovative product.

If you have remaining questions about other optional and/or mandatory criteria to prove as a business applicant, please sign up for a free consultation with our specialists.

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