Nigeria Sovereign Investment Trust Fund, NSIA, Price for Innovation has awarded $225,000 to MoneyAfrica and nine other Nigerian Start-Ups that emerged winners.
The top three winners received a mix of cash and equity to support their start-ups. This will be disbursed in ratio 75:25 consisting of equity and cash respectively in exchange for a stake in their company. The remaining seven winners received cash prizes.
MoneyAfrica emerged the overall winner with a cash prize of $25,000, Extension Africa, Exaf, came second and received a cash prize of $17,500 while LegitCar came third with a cash prize of $12,500.
The remaining seven Start-Ups shared the fourth position with cash each receiving a cash prize of $5,000. They are Apace Tech Solutions, Capsa Technology, CreditCheck, Kobopay, TrueQ, Vela Finance and Ya-Lo Technologies.
The ten winners emerged from a process which started with review of 2000 entries, six months of developing and refining of ideas over two rounds of eliminations.
To select the top three winners, the NSIA held a Demo Day over the weekend in Lagos, during which the selected top 10 Start-Ups pitched their ideas before a panel of judges, and an audience including banking executives and venture capital companies executives.
Speaking at the Demo Day, Managing Director/Chief Executive, NSIA, said: “The NSIA Prize for Innovation is a multi-year commitment by the NSIA to empower budding Nigerian innovators, in a bid to catalyse the rise of the digital economy.
“We are mindful that Digital is the new wealth code; it is a leveller and devoid of barriers to entry. Since we announced the NSIA Prize for Innovation, we have received many entries, each of which attests to the limitless spirit of innovation that abound in every nook and cranny of Nigeria. The entries are as niche and as multifaceted as can be.
“Although this Programme rewards winners with a sum of USD255,000, the real impact extends beyond the cash awards or event. Our core strategy of attracting third-party capital will result in many of these innovators securing funding from financiers far and wide. NSIA has demonstrated its ability to crowd-in incremental capital from global funding partners to address infrastructure needs across sectors,
“As an institution with a mandate to provide a saving base for the next generation of Nigerians, we see innovation as a critical element of this objective hence our continued support for innovation. Through the NSIA Prize for Innovation, we are taking incremental steps to deepen our mandate to future generations by ensuring we prioritize sectors that promote their creativity and ingenuity.”
Guest of Honour at the event, and Director General Nigeria Technology Development Agency, Inuwa Abdullahi, commended the ten finalists adding that their ideas shows that there are great potentials in Nigeria.
Speaking further, Abdullahi NSIA Prize for Innovation, “will really help position Nigeria for accelerated jobs creation in the digital economy. Most startups fail because of lack of financing. And according to much research, more than 47% of startups fail because of lack of financing at the initial stage.”
Speaking on the effort of NITDA to promote start-ups in the country, he said: “We have started the implementation of the Nigeria startup Act. Under the Act we are to establish a startup investment Seed Fund. The Act says we need a minimum of N10 billion per annum, but we are targeting N100 billion so that we should be able to seed at least 1000 early stage start-ups and about 400 late stage startups. This can help us in creating more than 80,000 jobs in Nigeria.”