Nigeria's Hubpharm Africa Wins $30,000 Top Prize at ECOWAS Startup Awards

Nigeria's Hubpharm Africa and Services, led by Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Tope Kareem, took the $30,000 first prize at the second ECOWAS Startup Awards, beating 59 other finalists drawn from 8,679 registrations across all 12 ECOWAS Member States.

Senegal's Gaynako, led by Pape Natango Mbaye, finished first runner-up and received $20,000. Côte d'Ivoire's myOpinion, founded and led by Steve Bah Besson, took the second runner-up position with $15,000.

The winners emerged from a field the ECOWAS Commission narrowed from 1,499 qualifying applications to 60 finalists. The Commission staged the finals at its new headquarters in Abuja.

Beyond the prize money, the event carried a regional agenda. "The ECOWAS Startup Awards is an instrument of regional economic transformation," Dehpue Yenpea Zuo, ECOWAS Commissioner for Economic Affairs and Agriculture, declared at the opening. "It is an instrument for addressing youth unemployment by creating entrepreneurs and job creators."

That framing reflects a demographic reality. In a region with a large and youthful population, governments and established companies cannot absorb every new labour-market entrant. The expectation increasingly falls on young people to become employers themselves.

The finalists represented six sectors the Commission considers critical to regional economic transformation: EdTech and Skills Development, FinTech, HealthTech, AgriTech and Food Systems, CleanTech and Green Innovation, and Tourism, Hospitality and TravelTech. A significant proportion of the finalists were women-led enterprises.

Peter Oluonye, Acting Director of the Directorate of Private Sector and Industry at the ECOWAS Commission, said the inaugural 2021 edition "demonstrated that our region had no shortage of innovative talent." It also demonstrated, he said, "that there was a genuine appetite for a platform that would connect them to capital, markets, and each other."

The Abuja programme delivered that platform over five days. Startups completed an intensive masterclass covering business validation, market access, regional expansion, investment readiness, fundraising, technology, environmental, social and governance issues, impact and return on investment, and pitching. A three-day physical phase added policy dialogue, sector clinics, investor engagements, business-to-business meetings and investor deal rooms.

Oluonye urged the founders to look past the cash. "Use this week well," he told them. "Build relationships. Ask difficult questions. Engage with the investors and mentors who are here to support you."

All 60 finalists gained access to a six-month acceleration programme, mentorship, investors, regional visibility and post-event support. The ECOWAS Commission also announced the launch of its Private Sector Development Academy, which will offer continuing training in enterprise development, digital transformation, export readiness, innovation management and competitiveness.

Natasha Akioye, National Coordinator for the International Trade Centre in Nigeria, framed the stakes. "Supporting entrepreneurs is not simply about helping individual businesses grow," she said. The real task, she argued, is to give promising enterprises "the skills, capabilities, finance, networks and market opportunities required to become competitive, scale across borders and contribute to stronger regional economies." She added: "The challenge — and the opportunity — is to ensure that this talent is matched with the capabilities, investment, technology, networks and market access required to turn promising ideas into sustainable and scalable businesses."

The cross-border dimension matters commercially. A startup confined to one West African market stays limited by its domestic customer base. An enterprise plugged into regional value chains and regional customers can tap a far larger economy.

Martin Boylan, Head of Cooperation at the European Union Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, said entrepreneurs cannot build that ecosystem alone. "Entrepreneurship does not succeed on its own," he said. "Startups flourish when there is an enabling ecosystem around them." That ecosystem, he explained, includes finance, reliable infrastructure, digital connectivity, skills, predictable regulation and intellectual property protection. He told the founders: "The European Union does not see you simply as beneficiaries of programmes. We see you as partners in West Africa's economic transformation."

The awards themselves are set to grow. Zuo said he intends to seek approval to raise the first prize in future editions from $30,000 to $50,000. "As a first priority, I am going to the management to actually get the permission to now increase the award amount, from $30,000 to $50,000," he said, adding that the objective was "so that it will become more attractive and competitive." He also confirmed the Startup Awards will become an annual event, following the first edition in 2021.

Zuo reminded participants that prize money is not the only measure of success. "All of you have a future," he said, urging founders to see themselves as leaders who had chosen "to change and impact the community and the entire globe." He pointed to Aliko Dangote, who started small and built a business with global reach, as proof that a startup's current size does not cap its future scale.

The structural obstacles remain real. Access to capital, infrastructure, skills, technology, regulation and markets will determine whether most of the 60 finalists survive their early years. The $65,000 in combined prize money will accelerate three businesses; the other 57 will need the knowledge, market access, networks, mentorship and investment the Abuja programme was built to provide.

"When your business succeeds, West Africa succeeds," Zuo told the entrepreneurs. "When you create jobs, you change lives. When you expand across borders, you strengthen regional integration."

The Abuja event will ultimately be judged not by the cheque presented to Hubpharm Africa and Services, or even the proposed $50,000 prize, but by whether the ecosystem assembled around the 60 finalists keeps functioning after the ceremony — and whether the annual format turns a one-off opportunity into a durable regional platform.