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Nigeria’s ShapShap and Kenya’s Melanin Kapital have emerged winners in the GITEX GLOBAL 2022 North Star Supernova Challenge to broaden the spotlight on Africa’s startup ecosystem.
ShapShap, a provider of white label APPs to SMEs for aggregating, optimizing, and allocating last-mile jobs to gig workers to ensure their sustainability and scalability, won in the Mobility & Smart Cities Innovator category. The company defeated Datoms (India) to cart away the $8000 for grabs.
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Melanin Kapital, a fintech that developed a sustainable finance platform helping banks and institutional investors to disburse sustainability-linked financing to SMEs in Africa, competed against fellow African and Nigerian startup, FLOEWS to emerge the judges’ top choice in the Africa Fast category.
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.
RELATED: One Kenyan, two Nigerian startups sign Africa into finals of GITEX North Star Supernova Challenge
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.
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.
