The extremely competitive 2023 Pitch2Win competition that took place in Lagos crowned PharmaRun, an online platform that provides pharmaceutical products and services, including BNPL alternatives, as the winning business.
PharmaRun is an online pharmacy that was established in 2021 by long-time best friends Teniola Adedeji and Funmilola Aderemi. It is located in Nguru, Lagos, Nigeria. The company’s mission is to address the difficulties that traditional pharmacies encounter, such as frequent stock shortages that force customers to settle for alternatives that are less desirable.
PharmaRun achieved the top rank in the competition with its amazing monthly revenue of over $18,000. It was recognised for the enormous possibility it presents the gravity of the problem it solves and the exceptional execution by its committed team, amongst other significant factors.
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Remarks from a co-founder of PharmaRun
While discussing the recent success of the company’s launch and its plans for the future, one of the co-founders, Teniola Adedeji, made the following statement:
“This was our first time pitching to an audience so it is amazing that we won. It’s given us validation that this is a product that is scalable, and we are unto something. Having to compete with founders that are well known, yet we won? It’s amazing… We’re looking to raise $500,000 for product development and customer acquisition and Pitch2Win is offering us visibility and access to investors. So we’re very thankful.”
In addition to PharmaRun’s $10,000 triumph in the competition, Akowe, an ed-tech business, also received a $3,000 reward for being the audience favourite as selected by the attendee vote.
Participants that finished in second place in the Pitch2Win competition
The company that came in second place in the competition, ZeroComplex AI, is a startup in the field of artificial intelligence that is focused on simplifying the process of incorporating AI into already-existing applications or the creation of AI-based products and services.
Kehinde Olateru, Adegbenga Agoro, and Olusola Adebayo are the founders of this company, which provides a unique AI-API platform with the goal of enabling small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), as well as startups, to exploit the possibilities of artificial intelligence.
Oystr Finance, a startup in the financial technology industry that enables easy access to alternative financial data, creditworthiness evaluation, and borrower identification verification across Africa, came in third place.
Additionally, Oystr Finance has been given the opportunity to participate in the ARM Labs Lagos Techstars Accelerator and has been granted an investment of up to $120,000. Ifedolapo Lawal and Omotayo Iginla developed this cutting-edge start-up company with the intention of empowering African companies to provide affordable micro-loans to those who are either unbanked or have limited access to regular banking services.
Regarding this competition known as Pitch2Win
At the event, the keynote lecture was given by Shola Akinlade, who was also one of the co-founders of PayStack. During his talk, he recounted the events of his life and highlighted the extraordinary things he had accomplished, including playing a video of the first time he pitched his business idea to the Y-Combinator team.
Kola Aina, a partner at Ventures Platform; Eloho Omame, an investor from TLCom Capital; Hiro Mashita, the founder of SG Verse; Yuzuru Honda, the founder of Freakout Holdings; and Kola Owodunni, the chief investment officer of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority were the members of the judging panel for the Pitch2Win pitching session, which immediately followed.
In addition, the Pitch2Win event included panel sessions that were led by well-known company founders and venture capital specialists from all around Nigeria. These sessions took place in between the main events.
Oyin Solebo, the Managing Director of Arms Labs Lagos, Dr. Ola Brown, the founder of HealthCap Africa, Joshua Chibueze, the Co-founder of PiggyVest, and Ruth Iselema, the Founder of Bitmama, were among the important panellists. In addition, there were many more influential players in the Nigerian startup business in attendance.
During a discussion about investments that was moderated by a panel with the topic “The funding part is over, what next?,” Maya Famodu, the founder of Ingressive Capital, recently gave a presentation in which she discussed her observations on the current state of the investment landscape. Famodu emphasised that cash is still being deployed in Africa, even if there has been a drop in startup investment around the world. This highlights the continuous prospects that exist for business owners in the African continent.
Olumide Soyombo, who started Voltron Capital and was also on the panel, said that he regularly invests and is willing to put money into promising startups that are competing in Pitch2Win and have a fair price.
Overall, the event gave startup owners a chance to learn new things, connect with experts in their fields, and be recognised for their creative ideas and business ventures.
