Nigeria’s startup ecosystem experienced a unique spring of new technology companies between 2015 and 2016, with the likes of PayStack, Kobo360 and many more coming on board. Millions of dollars also rolled into the country, and Nigeria was appearing to become Africa’s next ICT hub after Kenya.

However, of the scores that cropped up, I’ve highlighted a handful (in no particular order) that has kept mouths opened, and businesses awake through disruptive technologies. Feel free to leave comments in our “leave a reply” section below, especially if there are any other tech startups that we should consider profiling.

Kobo360 takes logistics to a whole new level with its online platform that centralises haulage operations for cargo owners, truck owners drivers, and cargo recipient, beginning with Nigeria.

The tech startup allows truck owners to put their vehicles to work, while Kobo360 ensures a seamless business flow that gets the trucks continuously busy.

Founded by the duo of Ife Oyedele and Obi Ozor in 2016, the technology startup uses real-time data and technology to reduce logistics frictions, therefore empowering rural farmers to earn more by reducing farm wastages and helping manufacturers of all sizes to reach their markets.

It has secured the support of $7.3 million from various funders including International Finance Corporation, TLcom Capital Partners, Y Combinator, Oded David ‘O.D.’ Kobo, Verod Capital Management and Western Technology Investment

The most recent $1.2 million funding round was in 2018, led by Western Technology Limited and Nigerian based Future Limited. With this, the company seeks to expand operations to Ghana, Togo and Cote D’Ivoire, and add 100 hubs for its operations throughout Nigeria in 2019.

Farmcrowdy started out in 2016 as Nigeria’s pioneer digital platform for agricultural activities. The startup empowers rural farmers by providing them with funding, improved seeds, farm inputs, training on modern farming techniques and provides a market for the sale of their farm produce.

By this, Farmcrowdy enables the farmers to cultivate more acres, leading to increased food production and security in Africa. The company has so far empowered more than 11,000 small scale-farmers across Nigeria. Over 16,000 acres of land have been cultivated under Farmcrowdy’s system, with over 25, 000 farms financed from scratch.

Ayodeji Arikawe, the founder of Thrive Agric also goes the way of agricultural production. Starting out with $20,000 funding from Ventures Platform, the agritech provides an investment platform where the public can fund agricultural operations, be it livestock or crops.

The individual investors could finance a single farm for about ₦85,000 ($236), earning interests as high as 15% in 6 months. Longer durations of 9 months bring higher interest rates of 20%.

Thrive Agric became prominent in 2017 and has since supported more than 4,000 farmers with the crowd-sourcing model, helping small-scale producers with access to finance, best practices and link up with buyers during harvest.

The startup has a handy tool (a mobile application), where data of farmers and farm operations are recorded. Farmers also receive automated SMS based on crops they are planting. The app provides co-ordinates of farms and crops planted, weekly satellite images, soil condition and other analysis are taken to ensure right predictions on weather conditions and yield.

It doesn’t stop there. The funds invested in crops are insured with Leadway Assurance to keep the money safe.

Thrive Agric will be part of YC combinator’s 2019 winter batch, after which the company hopes to help it provide microloans to Nigerian farmers and a channel to sell products to large buyers.

Pledre is perhaps one of the most innovative edtech Nigeria has produced. Cofounded by Demilade Odetara, the online tool provides schools and organisations with their own customised learning management systems.

It operates on a simple system that allows anyone to create their own school where students and teachers can engage in lectures with topics, videos, notes, chats and contents like they would in a physical classroom.

The online schools, which could be to augment a physical school or a stand-alone online learning centre, can operate on its own domain. It has a fully functional library, forum, multiple classrooms, live video chat, personal notes and 3rd party application integrations, all to ensure a seamless learning experience.

Paylater started out in 2016 as an instant loan app that provides credit facilities of ₦7,000 or ₦10,000 within minutes, without collateral. It is a subsidiary of a Lagos-based financial service company, One Finance.

It wasn’t long for Paylater to start offering higher loans, and users could access up to a million naira. But it doesn’t stop there. The company launched new exciting features almost every month, posing real threats to banks and other loan apps.

Users could recharge airtime on any network, pay bills for all your favourite services and transfer money, all at the lowest possible cost. They could also earn up to 15.5% per annum when you invest with its investment platform, Payvest.

Just last week, the fintech decided to relaunch as a full-fledged digital bank, considering it’s now much wider features. While retaining all features, the tech firm rebranded to Carbon.

Arguably one of the most successful fintech startups in Nigeria, Paystack is a payment process platform that simplifies payment collection by businesses. It launched on a full scale in 2016, with $1.3 seed funding million from local and international investors, including Tencent, Comcast Ventures, and Ventures Platform.

The fintech, founded by Ezra Olubi and Shola Akinlade, has managed to become the processor of nearly 15% of all online payments in Nigeria. It recorded a mind-blowing monthly processed payments of 10 billion naira in October 2018.

Before last year ended, the startup announced a new $10.2 million round of funding from investors including Stripe, Visa and China’s Tencent. With this, it hopes to enter new markets across Africa, starting with Ghana.

Zedvance was founded by Adedayo Amzat to deepen financial inclusion across Nigeria, by providing increased access to credit facilities, without burdensome restrictions.

Its primary market includes salary earners in the corporate sector, where an individual could access up to ₦5 million loan, with a flexible repayment period of up to 18 months. Zedvance has managed to maintain the lead in this niche.

There is also Moneypal by Zedvance, which offers collateral-free loans from ₦2500 to ₦10000. The fintech has alao launched an expansion drive to cater to non-salary earners as well as small businesses across the country.

The year 2017 was Flutterwave’s year as the fintech disrupted Africa’s financial sector with its continental and cross-country payment processing product. Up till now, some international payment transfer tools such as TransferWise rely on Flutterwave to complete funds transfer to African countries.

The tech startup made it easier for Africans to build global businesses that can make and accept any payment, anywhere from across Africa and around the world. Its offices are spread across San Francisco, Lagos, Nairobi, Accra, and Johannesburg.

So far, the company has processed up to $2.5b in 100 million transactions. It also partners 50 banks across its market to enable seamless movement of money.

Upon the $10 million Series A funding it received in 2017, Flutterwave secured another $10 million funding from key players in the finance industry. MasterCard and former Visa CEO, Joseph Saunders participated in the round, to further expand its operations.

Mines.IO milks the untapped juice of data analytics in Africa’s financial sector. Ekechi Nwokah and Kunle Olukotun founded the tech company in 2014 while executing an artificial intelligence research project at Stanford University. It came on the premise that data is essential to financial inclusion and accurate credit rating.

It helps banks to gain deeper insights into customers’ behaviour, and personalize customers banking experiences to generate additional revenue. It also mines data for payment processing companies, retailers and mobile operators.

Substantiating the importance of Mine.IO’s solution was the $13 million the company got from investors in 2018. The round was led by TPG’s The Rise Fund. Many other investors participated in the round. They include Velocity Capital, Western Technology Investments, First Ally Capital, X/Seed Capital, NYCA Partners, Persistent Capital, Singularity Investments, Trans Sahara Investments, and the Bank of Industry.

Nigeria’s edtech space can’t be discussed without significant reference to Prepclass. The company connects potential learners with skilled tutors across Nigeria. The approach is to provide tutors for basically anything a client may wish to learn, be it English language and grammar structuring, phonetics, or Chinese. Teachings are also designed to take place physically at the child/learner/tutee’s comfortable home and time.

Founded by Obanor Chukwuwezam and Ogunlana Olumide, Prepclass started their disruptive journey with an initial $20, 000 support, before going on to win various competitions that brought it $40,000 more. It launched fully with the $100,000 funding from Africa Angels Network and Venture Gardens Group in 2018.

Prepclass also offers an app called ‘Prep-test’ which was developed to provide tutors with a platform where they can upload contents created by them as text, image, audio-visual. Learners are able to download the app, which is available on Android google play store, sign up by registering and use the contents provided to learn and study.

Qwenu! publishes opinions, stories, reflections, and experiences of Africans on contemporary issues. Click here to read articles from Africans at home and in the diaspora. Email submissions to editor@qwenu.com. Follow us @qwenu_media Featured image Nesa by Makers/Unsplash