On July 31st during Seedstars Lagos, MyQ won the Nigerian round of Seedstars World and will represent Nigeria at the Seedstars World Final in Geneva to compete for up to USD 500’000 in equity investment.
Seedstars World, the global seed-stage startup competition for emerging markets and fast-growing startup scenes brought its Nigerian round to a successful close during Seedstars Lagos, which was hosted at the Oriental Hotel Lagos. 12 startups were invited to compete and the regional winner, MyQ, a mobile application that provides queue management, passenger loading and ticketing services to the transportation industry, was selected the best startup in Nigeria. MyQ will be going to Switzerland in February 2016 for the final pitching round, potentially winning the USD 500’000 equity investment. Other investments and prizes such as the Travel Investment track powered by lastminute.com group, a USD 500k equity investment for the best travel startup and the USD 50k grant for the best space startup are also up for grabs.
The event was organized in partnership with Stanbic IBTC who acted as the main sponsor for the event. Demola Adebisi, Marketing & Communication at Stanbic IBTC said “Congratulations to all the participating startups and especially to MyQ, tonight’s winner”.
The 12 startups pitched in front of a prestigious jury including Tomi Davies, the president of ABAN (African Business Angel Network) who said “This crop of entrepreneurs are different in that they came prepared to show why their products are market beaters and their business model differentiated. Seedstars itself has grown up with better organization and deeper relationships in the country.”
The regional winner, MyQ, was named Nigeria’s best startup for its unique solution. Ishiaku Gwamna of MyQ, talked to us about winning the title and what it means to him and his company. “I feel great, we are happy and we really appreciate winning the title. Both the bootcamp and the actual event were inspiring and we are really looking forward to see what’s next”.
Talentbase with its lightweight and easy-to-use mobile/web-based HR & Payroll Software targeting 20milllion SMEs in Nigeria came second and Nerveflo, a unified digital content distribution system for the next billion people in Africa and emerging markets (i.e. ITunes for Africa), grabbed the last spot in the top 3.
