Nigeria’s ThriveAgric wins CEMEA Visa Everywhere Initiative 2022, gets $25k prize

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Visa Everywhere Initiative helps start-ups unlock new opportunities and gives them a global platform to demonstrate their ground-breaking solutions
ThriveAgric wins CEMEA Visa Everywhere Initiative 2022

Technology-driven agricultural start-up, ThriveAgric, has emerged as the winner of the Central Europe, Middle East, and Africa (CEMEA) Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI), a global innovation program and competition for start-ups and fintech companies. 

With this win in the CEMEA region, ThriveAgric will receive a monetary prize and a spot in the
Global Finale scheduled to hold in Qatar, in November 2022.

Carepay, another Nigerian fintech, also made it to the final five and won the Audience Favourite Award.

More than 1,300 applicants entered the competition from across the region, each with
solutions aimed at delivering innovative payment and commerce solutions to consumers and
businesses. 

We have witnessed substantial growth in the fintech sector in Nigeria. Last year, Nigeria had the most entries from Central Europe, Middle East and Africa, this year two indigenous startups made it to the finals with ThriveAgric emerging the winner. This is a clear demonstration of the country’s significance in the fintech sector, and the growth potential of the digital economy.

Andrew Uaboi, Country Manager, Visa Nigeria

Ayo Arikawe, Co-Founder, ThriveAgric, said, “Agriculture is at the centre of the Nigerian
economy, yet the sector faces productivity-limiting challenges like access to finance, poor
access to the market, and technical know-how. This is why our goal at ThriveAgric is to
provide profitable support for smallholder farmers and enable food production efforts,
leveraging technology. So this partnership with Visa is a testament to the work we have put in
so far and we look forward to scaling our solutions to more farmers
.“

ThriveAgric wins CEMEA Visa Everywhere Initiative 2022, gets $25k prize
Nigeria’s ThriveAgric wins CEMEA Visa Everywhere Initiative 2022, gets $25k prize

What is ThriveAgric?

ThriveAgric is a technology-driven agricultural company passionate about food security, that
enables strategic partnerships with financial institutions & agriculture value chain players to
provide smallholder farmers with capital (in form of agriculture inputs), data-driven best
practices, access to local & global markets for their commodities, as well as financial, e-
commerce, and payment services.

CarePay is an aggregator of health services, driving accessibility and affordability of
healthcare services through insurance and discount plans.

About the Visa Everywhere Initiative

Visa Everywhere Initiative is an open innovation program that helps start-ups unlock new
opportunities and gives them a global platform to demonstrate their ground-breaking solutions.

The program first launched in the U.S. in 2015 and quickly expanded into a global program. To date, nearly 8,500 start-ups have participated, and have collectively raised more than $16 billion in funding.

The Visa Everywhere Initiative is open to all start-ups who offer innovative solutions to the
payments and commerce challenges of tomorrow. It also helps support start-ups and fintech in two ways:

  1. As a competition, it gives them a global stage to pitch their solutions to a panel of payments experts, win prizes and gain wider attention in the sector.
  2. As a program, it plugs start-ups into our global network of partners. This network is
    accessible to our Visa teams from all over the world when looking for solutions.

The other finalists that competed in the CEMEA Visa Everywhere Regional Finale are:

Qlub (United Arab Emirates) – a company that provides a payment solution for restaurants where customers can view, split and pay their bills by scanning a QR code. Other functionalities include ordering and data analytics, simplifying and digitising the E2E restaurant experience.

Negabty (Egypt) – a platform that automates the services of syndicates and eases the connection with its members. Users can access medical health solutions across the platform and other key financial services, all provided with different payment solutions.

NQOODLET (Saudi Arabia) – a unified digital platform to help SMEs manage their expenses and purchases easily.


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