- Drugstoc will compete against other Visa regional champions from North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific at the VEI global finals in San Francisco in September at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference in San Francisco
Chibuzo Opara, Co-founder, and CEO of Drugstoc, an innovative startup that leverages technology, supply chain management, financial solutions, and product knowledge to enhance access to health care in emerging markets, was crowned winner of the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa (CEMEA) edition of the Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI) – a global open innovation program and competition for start-ups and fintech companies.
Having taken the $20,000 USD 1st place prize, Chibuzo Opara will now compete against the other Visa Everywhere Initiative regional champions from North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific at the VEI Global Finals, which will take place on September 19th at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference in San Francisco.
“Fintechs and payments innovators are shaping the future of how we make payments as consumers and as businesses,” said Otto Williams, Senior Vice President and Head of Product, Partnership and Digital Solutions at Visa CEMEA. We are proud to offer them a platform to showcase their impactful solutions that can uplift the world of payments and commerce. We’ve seen some impressive projects at this year’s competition – congratulations to Chibuzo Opara for winning and to all our participants. We wish Drugstoc the best of luck for the VEI Global Finals.”
This 2023 edition of VEI introduced a new Risk prize, with an expanded remit that includes start-ups offering finance value-adds for merchants and consumers.
- Risk: awarded to Giorgio Patrini of Sensity with a prize of US$25,000. The Fintechs Innovating in Risk Excellence (FIIRE) award was supported by UAE-based bank Emirates NBD Group and was open to CEMEA-based fintech whose product includes a security or risk element that can revolutionize the payments landscape. Beyond a cash prize, the FIIRE winner also an opportunity to work with Emirates NBD Group, one of the Middle East’s largest banking groups in terms of assets.
Also honored at the VEI CEMEA Regional Finals was Nelson Aseka of AIfluence, who took home the Audience Favorite award of $10,000.
In addition to an equity-free cash prize for winning, Chibuzo Opara of Drugstoc will be able to showcase their solution on a global stage with TechCrunch, one of the world’s most influential start-up technology platforms, gaining valuable exposure to key fintech stakeholders across the banking, merchant, VC and government sectors.
Speaking on winning the CEMEA competition, Chibuzo Opara, Co-founder, and CEO Drugstoc said: “The competition has been a great platform to showcase our capabilities, learn, grow, and fuel our aspirations. It’s an overwhelming journey that doesn’t stop here, it only propels us to strive for more and we are looking forward to the global finals in San Francisco. I am proud of the Drugstoc team who keep pushing to make the dream of distributing and enhancing the availability of medical supplies and services a reality. We see the opportunity to collaborate with Visa through its technology, to service the Drugstoc supply chain and bringing efficiency to Sub-Saharan Africa.”
Since its launch in 2015, VEI has helped start-ups from more than 100 countries collectively raise more than US$16 billion in funding, with a growing network of nearly 12,000 start-ups.
Facts 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 US in 2015, and quickly expanded into a global program. To date, nearly 12,000 start-ups have participated, and have collectively raised more than $16 billion in funding so far.
- 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: 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. 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.
