Meanwhile, 10 contestants in the hackathon session at the fourth edition of the Zenith Tech Fair (#ZenithBankTechfair2024) received a total of N77.5m in prize money.

The winners emerged at the tech fair themed ‘Future Forward 4.0: Embedded Finance, Cybersecurity & Growth Imperatives – The Impact of AI,’ held on Thursday in Lagos.

The prize money was shared among 10 finalists who emerged from the over 1,700 contestants took part in the hackathon.

JumpnPass, emerged as the overall winner to take home the grand prize of N25m in addition to a six-week mentorship and incubation programme designed to help them grow and scale effectively, which will run from December 2024 to February 2025.

The first runner-up was, CreditChek, a credit and verification service provider that leverages AI and open banking to streamline income and credit history verification for financial institutions, won N20m and a mentorship programme, while the second runner-up, Salad Africa, a start-up that offers seamless integration of credit products for digital platforms and software companies, won N15m as well as a mentorship program.

Other finalists including Regxta, CashAfrica, Middleman, Messenger, Pocketfood, Famasi Africa, and Kitovu won N2.5m each.

In her opening remarks at the tech fair, Dr. Adaora Umeoji, the group managing director/CEO of Zenith Bank Plc, expressed her appreciation to the founder/ Chairman, Dr Jim Ovia, for birthing the idea that led to the establishment of the Tech Fair initiative five years ago.

Commenting on the Zecathon, she said,

“This prestigious annual event was created to empower and nurture young fertile minds. We hope to produce the likes of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk from the Zenith Bank Hackathons in the near future.

According to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, 70 per cent of Nigeria’s population are youths which is an economic asset when properly harnessed.

This is part of the reason why Zenith Bank is hosting this event to support the development of technology startups.

Their success not only fosters innovation and growth in Nigeria, but it also plays a vital role in creating employment opportunities for our youth.”

She also stressed the importance of innovation in ensuring strong and enduring institutions.

Umeoji added,

“It is paramount that we adapt and adopt technology to stay ahead of the curve. We have seen various cases of companies that failed because of their lack of innovation. It is quite obvious that when companies fail to innovate, they can easily be displaced, so this is not the time to be orthodox; innovation should be a top priority for us.”

Announcing the fundraising, Kingsley Ibe, Co-founder CreditChek, said the vision is to be the most reliable credit infrastructure in Africa in the next 5 years, fostering trust between lenders and borrowers.

“In furtherance of that vision, we are pleased to announce that we’ve raised $240,000 in pre-seed funding led by Atom.

“As coconut heads; we continue to be stubborn on our vision as financial inclusion advocates but flexible on our mission.”

The funding will be used to drive its vision of becoming the most reliable credit infrastructure in Africa in the next 5 years, fostering trust between lenders and borrowers.

The funding was led by Atom Capital with participation from Aidi Ventures, Ham Serunjogi of Chippercash, Olumide Ogunsanwo of Adamantium Fund, Damola Adegboyega of Assembly Investors, Isaac Ewaleifoh of Launch Africa Ventures, and Ogundiran Kayode.

“In April 2022, we launched our MVP in beta, testing with a few businesses and making iterations. While in Beta, we onboarded 30 businesses, processed thousands of API calls, and eventually came out of Beta in June 2021.”

CreditChek uses structured, user-permissioned data from multiple sources to create powerful Identity, credit, and verification services that empower fintechs, banks, microfinance institutions, retail businesses, and mobile money operators to build better financial products for the underserved.

“In Nigeria, it is not unusual to hear of customers who take loans from 3 to 5 lenders simultaneously and then disappear into thin air. These sorts of audacious schemes and a general unwillingness of customers to pay loans continue to overwhelm lenders.”

This is mostly because existing credit bureaus have a high barrier to entry and are therefore inaccessible to the average Nigerian business. Most low-income consumers aren’t captured in the formal banking system; hence limited historical data on underbanked consumers.

“So, we pivoted to building the credit assessment infrastructure for lending businesses in Africa. A platform that will enable both digital and traditional leaders reliably verify identity and assess the creditworthiness of potential customers,” he said.