TechCabal has announced the seven finalists for its Battlefield startup competition, which will be held next week at Social Media Week (SMW) Lagos and see the startups competing to win US$20,000.
HumanIPO reported last month TechCabal had partnered with Stanbic bank, Jobberman and Social Media Week (SMW) Lagos to launch Battlefield.
TechCabal editor-in-chief Bankole Oluwafemi said there had been 92 applications for Battlefield, out of which the blog had picked seven finalists: e-commerce as a service platform 500Shops, product discovery platform Adugbo, voice communication firm Callbase, real estate crowdfunding site CasaGrupo, music lyrics platform Decoded, e-commerce platform GoKool, and education portal Prepclass.
The seven finalists will enter into the Battlefield Academy, with each being paired with a mentor to help them think through their product, business and presentation. Mentors include Tomi Davies of the Lagos Angel Network, Editi Effiong of Anakle, Femi Taiwo of INITS, Mark Essien of Hotels.ng and Ojoma Ochai of the British Council.
Prize money for the competition recently doubled to US$20,000 after online music service iROKING pledged US$10,000.
“To be honest, we are genuinely amazed at how the ecosystem is coming together to make things happen,” said Oluwafemi. “First is mainstream non-tech heavyweights like Stanbic IBTC making a this sort of visionary bet on technology startups. They were the first to believe in what we are trying to accomplish with the Startup Battlefield in Nigeria and contributed the lion’s share of the prize money.
“However, what we are also seeing here is startups making it happen for upcoming startups. These are remarkable and great developments for a fledgling tech ecosystem like ours. We are counting on the startups that benefit from this to remember the example that iROKING, Jobberman and Konga are setting today. Ecosystems become truly powerful when it’s members give back.”
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