Meet the Nigeria AI startup who won Africa Fast Award at global tech event

GIFTY AI, a Nigerian startup that provides an AI-powered sales growth assistant for e-commerce businesses, has won the top prize in the Super Nova Challenge by North Star at GITEX 2023, the world’s largest tech event.

According to Sputnik. Africa, a research platform, this accomplishment not only earned the startup the title but also an award of $8,000 in acknowledgment of its innovative solutions and approach to e-commerce.

“Africa is rapidly emerging as the largest market for merchants to succeed in. To fully capitalise on these opportunities there is a need to harness innovative and advanced technologies, thus revolutionising the e-commerce industry on the continent,” it said.

Victor D. Akpan, CEO of GIFTY AI said, “I only talked about technology, Africa, and the future. And I won! Representing Africa in the Middle East was a tough one for me. I guess I followed my star from Africa to Expand North Star, Dubai.”

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“The company’s achievement for Africa and the global tech community puts Africa on the map as a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship,” he said.

GIFTY is Africa’s first AI sales growth assistant for medium, small and micro enterprises using e-commerce platforms.

The startup empowers small business owners, who often need more resources to invest in conventional marketing and sales teams, to establish their e-commerce sites in under five minutes and secure orders from customers who are willing to buy from them.

According to Akpan. the competition was with 1,799 participants from over 100 countries. In the Africa Fast Award category, there were 20 African startups competing in the semi-final stage.

Akpan stressed that out of all the 14 categories, he “emerged as the only winner from Africa who made it to the finals.”

“We believe the timing is perfect for us to leverage emerging and cutting-edge technologies to disrupt the e-commerce industry for over 90 million MSMEs within Africa. We are building gifty.com.ng to let the world know that Africa is taking over!” Akpan added.