By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) has announced the startups to participate in the second phase of the accelerator stage (physical bootcamp) of the NSIA Prize for Innovation (NPI 2.0).
The week-long physical bootcamp will culminate in a mini demo day where the small firms will pitch their solutions before a panel of judges drawn from the technology and the business ecosystem for a chance to proceed to the Demo Day and vie for a total combined prize value of $220,000 with an all-expense paid five-week training at Draper University, Silicon Valley, USA.
Speaking on this, the chief executive of NSIA, Mr Aminu Umar-Sadiq, noted that the agency remained focused on leveraging the prize to propel socio-economic development, especially by catalysing the technology ecosystem.
He also said it would encourage youth entrepreneurship, advancing innovative solutions to everyday challenges and positioning Nigerian tech talents for global relevance.
The two-part accelerator phase initially had 100 start-ups selected after rigorous evaluation and due diligence carried out on over 7,000 early-stage businesses that registered for the competition.
Out of these, and following additional screening, the following start-ups from multiple sectors have been shortlisted to proceed to the physical bootcamp.
Mr Umar-Sadiq further explained that the NPI was the authority’s multi-year commitment to identify and nurture early-stage businesses with potential for transformative impact in the country.
Currently in its second edition, NPI has garnered significant attention as high-quality applications from interested businesses grew from 2,000 in the maiden edition to over 7,000 in 2024.
The initiative aligns with the authority’s ongoing commitment to catalyse the technology ecosystem by identifying and rewarding Nigerian innovators, equipping them with the right tools to scale product–market fit, connecting start-ups with potential investors and delivering a robust community of technology innovators and entrepreneurs.
It is a phased competition broken into the pre-selection stage, where innovators submit their application through the application portal; the accelerator stage, where the top finalists participate in a virtual and in-person training bootcamp and demo day, where the top 10 finalists pitch their solutions to a panel of technology and business leaders.
The post-demo day stage has the top 10 finalists participate in an all-expense paid training programme at Draper University, Silicon Valley, USA.
The start-ups selected for the bootcamp include Magic Carpet, Materials Pro, Jump n Pass, Awacash, VPay, Betalife, Centio Healthcare, Yalo, Pocket Lawyers, Doktorconnect and Trashcoin.
Others are One Health, Redease, VPD, Kunda Kids, Agroxchange Technology, Sycamore, Passcoder, Earlybean, Powerfull, Adashe, Cash Africa, TownHall, Sakula, Pave, Tribapay.
Modupe Gbadeyanka