Nigeria’s promising start-ups to watch in 2024

Despite the difficult business environment in Nigeria and lots of startups exiting the landscape owing to their inability to get additional funding, the country is still a leading hub for entrepreneurship in Africa.

The country has earned the position owing to a growing number of engaging international investors, its population size and increasing numbers of start-ups supporting organisations active in the ecosystem.

As a result, yearly, we are seeing more innovative entrepreneurs’ start-ups providing solutions to societal problems, disrupting the sector in which they operate and creating jobs.

On this note, Start-Up-Digest takes a look at some of these start-ups that will make some serious waves in the country’s entrepreneurship space in 2024. And in no particular order, they are:

Moove

Moove is a Lagos-based mobility fintech startup founded in 2019 tackling vehicle financing and helping more people in Africa to afford their dream vehicles, since it commenced operations in June 2020.

Its model is a game-changer in the transportation sector, offering innovative vehicle financing and management solutions.

Its expansion plans and strategic approach position it as a key player in Nigeria and the broader global mobility landscape.

Backed by British International Investment, Future Africa, and AfricInvest, Moove provides car financing solutions for ride-hailing drivers under a ride-to-own scheme.

It embeds its alternative credit-scoring technology onto ride-hailing and e-logistics platforms, which allows access to proprietary performance and revenue analytics of mobility entrepreneurs to underwrite loans.

Moove’s model is to provide loans to its customers by selling them new vehicles and financing up to 95 percent of the purchase within five days of sign-up.

Its customers can choose to pay back their loans over 24, 36, or 48 months, using a percentage of their weekly revenue. All Moove customers sign up to its app to manage all transactions and access other financial products on the platform.

The startup sees a vast market opportunity in Africa which is home to 1.3 billion people, with 43 percent in urban areas and growing, and in 2019 had fewer than 900,000 total new vehicle sales compared to 17 million in the US.

Moove is Uber’s exclusive vehicle financing and vehicle supply partner in sub-Saharan Africa, with Moove-financed cars having completed more than 850,000 Uber trips covering over 13 million kilometers across the continent to date.

As Uber’s largest vehicle supply partner in the EMEA region, Moove secured $76 million in funding, underscoring its influence and potential for growth.

Moove’s transformative approach to mobility fintech is a defining example of African ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit.

Terragon

Terragon, a startup is at the forefront of the marketing technology (MarTech) space in Africa. It provides unique consumer insights and activation platforms, helping marketers tap into a rich vein of customer data.

Since its inception in 2009, Terragon has leveraged data and technology to empower brands in reaching and engaging African consumers on their mobile devices.

Their technology capabilities enable businesses to merge online and offline data, digital footprints, and activities for marketing intelligence.

With this latest solution tailored for banking clients, Terragon continues to drive industry impact by facilitating real-time behavioral insights and taking Omni-channel messaging to new heights.

With a recent $9 million Series B funding and a noteworthy partnership with Microsoft, Terragon is expanding its cloud-based ecosystem.

The company’s focus on understanding and engaging African consumers makes it a key player in the continent’s digital transformation journey, offering businesses the tools to thrive in an increasingly data-driven market.

Remedial Health

Remedial Health is an e-health startup that has developed solutions to make Africa’s pharmaceutical value chain more efficient.

Founded in 2020 by Samuel Okwuada and Victor Benjamin, the start-up delivers a range of technology solutions that make it easier for healthcare providers to access affordable and genuine retail medicines, consumables and medical devices from manufacturers and distributors.

Remedial Health operates at the intersection of healthcare, supply chain management, technology and financial services, delivering the digital procurement infrastructure to power effective healthcare distribution for Africa’s 1.2 million pharmacies.

Since commencing operation in the country, Remedial Health has built an effective operating system for pharmaceutical buyers and suppliers, working with more than 300 manufacturers and serving more than 5,000 hospitals, pharmacies and PPMVs across 34 of Nigeria’s 36 states, with regional hubs to enable a seamless experience across the country.

In August 2023, the startup announced that it raised $12 million in Series A equity-debt funding, with a mission to scale operations in the West African country, before expanding to the rest of Africa.

Fintech VC firm QED Investors co-led the round, banking on embedded financial opportunities like payments, and lending in the pharmaceutical sector.

The funding will enable Remedial Health to deepen the reach of these services across Nigeria and deliver more game-changing solutions to drive greater efficiency across the pharmaceutical value chain.

Helium Health

More than half of the private healthcare facilities in Nigeria lacked access to external financing, according to data from Pharmaccess. To bridge this gap, Adegoke Olubusi, the CEO of Helium Health launched the startup to digitize electronic mediva; records in the country. Today, Helium Health is the largest Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and Hospital Management Information (HMI) Systems provider in West Africa.

In 2020, Olubusi and his team launched HeliumCredit to give hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and diagnostics centers loans to buy medical equipment and medication and facilitate business expansions.

Using loans to scale is a critical part of any business strategy. Africa has a $66 billion health financing deficit, and this is mostly due to the lack of data.

Investors and donors often rely on data-driven assessments to determine the impact and effectiveness of their contributions. Helium Health bridges the data gap by enrolling hospitals in HeliumOS—its core product which digitises electronic medical records.

Recently, it raised $30 million in a series B funding round led by global investment leader, AXA IM Alts. Other participants in the funding round include Capria Ventures, Angaza Capital, U.S.-based Flatworld Partners and existing investor, Tencent. Helium Health intends to use this new investment to scale up operations and expand credit in the African healthcare sector.

Sabi

Sabi is a Lagos-based B2B e-commerce startup that provides digital commerce infrastructure to Africa’s informal economy. It has operations in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa. The startup last year raised $38 million in series B funding at a valuation of $300 million.

Some of the investors in the round included German-based specialist fintech investor CommerzVentures, Stockholm-based but Africa-focused growth-stage investor Norrsken22, U.S.-based growth-stage funds Fluent Ventures and Proof VC and pan-African early-stage investors CRE Venture Capital and Janngo Capital.