TECHDIGEST – Nigeria’s winner and finalist at the just ended GITEX GLOBAL 2022 North Star Supernova expect to scale and gain market traction in the months ahead.

Khalil Halil, Founder of ShapShap and Bashir Abubakar, Founder & CEO, FLOEWS , expressed optimism for growth in terms of investment and funding as well as a greater product acceptance despite numerous challenges.

Winning it for country and firm

ShapShap,  winner in the the Mobility & Smart Cities Innovator category at the just ended GITEX GLOBAL 2022 North Star Supernova Challenge, plans to explore the limitless oppurtunities for logistics in Nigeria’s growing urban centres and also those of other markets within the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

“We are making impact by empowering other companies with technology to tackle logistics challenges in Africa and we are focussing also on expansion to other markets,” Halil, Founder of Shapshap, told IT Edge News in Dubai.

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ShapShap is a provider of white label APPs to SMEs for aggregating, optimizing, and allocating last-mile jobs to gig workers. This is to ensure their sustainability and scalability. The Nigerian startup defeated Datoms (India) to cart away the  $8000 for that category at the Dubai event now regarded as the globe’s biggest startup and tech show.

Halil said attending the GITEX GLOBAL 2022 North Star has afforded he and his team opurtunity to “access people, companies and resources to scale”their business.

Startups should “follow [their] dreams, there’s a lot of opportunity for local companies,” he added.

Gearing up for the final pitch.: Flowes

Khalil is passionate about building products to solve ;problems in Africa’s rising urban centres. ShapShap provides one of the best on-demand delivery service in Nigeria for online ordering and same-day delivery of food, groceries, medicines, and packages via a mobile application.

A continent that is expected to have over 70% of its population in urban centres by 2040 already has a well defined future for Shapshap, the judges in Dubai appeared to be saying.

For Abubakar, not winning was tough. But it is part of the learning curve in business, he said. It was no easy ride to becoming a finalist out of a motley crowd of over 800 startups from all over the world.  FLOEWS  would lose to Kenya’s Melanin Kapital  in the Africa Fast category. 

The Supernova Challenge is the biggest pitch competition in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, where startups have opportunity to become the next unicorn.

Nine Nigerian startups had earlier emerged as semi-finalists including Identity Pass, 9JaCodeKids Academy, Floews, MedTech, Paddycover, Pricepally, LiveBic, Technyon Technologies, and Wellness Health Technologies.

An excited Nigeria Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, who was honoured days back at the global event with the prestigious Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) Leadership and Commitment Award 2022. commended the winners as exhibiting the strength, determination and limitless imagination of African startups.

He assured ShapShap and the entire Nigerian startup community of government’s continuous support.

Every startup is a winner

North Star offers all startups whether they win the competition or not, many opportunities to engage with investors and the wider North Star audience.

According to the organisers, the judges are looking for how innovative is the idea, the market opportunity derivable from the idea including possible market size, competition, and scalability. Other criteria include business model, revenue model, pricing, and target customers. Also considered is traction; whether the idea already attracted any revenue, customers, and investors. Team is equally important. The drivers of the idea must have the prerequisite skill to take the startup to success.

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TECHDIGEST – Two Nigerian tech start-ups have qualified for the final of the Supernova Challenge Pitch Competition at the ongoing GITEX 2022, PRNigeria can authoritatively report.

PRNigeria had earlier, on Monday, reported that the two Nigerian start-ups that emerged as finalists were among the nine that first made it to the semi-final level.

Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, also, while inaugurating the exhibition pavilion of Nigeria at the Dubai World Trade Centre, confirmed that nine Nigerian tech innovators and start-ups booked their spots in the semi-final of the GITEX tech-invention competition.

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He said: “I am confident that the nine Nigerian start-ups and innovators will surely give their foreign counterparts a run for their money. And will cart away the prizes at stake, during the grand finale of the exhibition”.

The Nigerian start-ups to compete for the gold position of the Supernova Challenge Pitch Competition are FLOEWS and ShapShap.

Another start-up from Kenya, Melanin Kapital, is the other African representative in the final of the ‘Mobility and Smart Cities Innovator’ category, that the Nigerian tech firms qualified for.

FLOEWS is a multi-award winning startup seeking to solve the persistent problem of climate change and natural disasters like flooding, by providing an equitable access to a democratized, socially-inclusive and gender-responsive disaster risk management together with early warning for vulnerable individuals, business communities and national economies.

While ShapShap provides the best on-demand delivery service in Nigeria for online ordering and same-day delivery of food, groceries, medicines, and packages using a mobile application.

The GITEX event is currently holding at the Dubai World Trade Centre, in United Arab Emirates, UAE.

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