After a team of over 400 mentors spent the months of March to May reviewing over 4,900 businesses in all regions of Africa, Nigeria’s digital publishing startup, Publiseer, was awarded the ‘Most Needed in the Region’ award at the 2018 African Entrepreneurship Award powered by BMCE Bank of Africa, a large commercial bank in Morocco, which operates over 697 branches in Morocco and 560 branches in Africa. The prestigious award offers $1 million to all eligible African entrepreneurs with extraordinary businesses or with an idea for one.
The award categories are divided into two; Innovation and Sports. The Innovation award rewards new technologies, new business models, or attempts to solve an existing problem that’s never been solved before in a region in Africa, while the Sports award rewards businesses that promote integrity, perseverance and friendship that unites communities in Africa. The goal of the African Entrepreneurship Award is to close the huge gap in startup funding, so it’s more than just a grant. Thousands of entrepreneurs answered questions about their idea, market, scalability and sustainability, and received free mentoring and individual scores. All 54 African countries participated in the award.
“Publiseer has just been awarded the ‘Most Needed in the Region’ award at the African Entrepreneurship Award @AEAward powered by BMCE Bank of Africa!”, read a tweet by Publiseer. The startup led by Chidi Nwaogu, who is a finalist for a full scholarship at MEST Africa’s graduate-level entrepreneurship program, has made giant strides this year, including emerging a finalist at the Harvard Business School New Venture Competition 2018 and becoming profitable in eight months from inception. BMCE Bank of Africa has offices in France, Spain, United Kingdom, China, Italy, Germany, UAE, Belgium, Canada and Netherlands.
