Nigeria's ShapShap wins mobility and smart city challenge at GITEX 2022

Shap Shap, a Northern Nigeria-based logistics startup won the Supernova Challenge Pitch Competition for the mobility and smart city category at the ongoing Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (GITEX) 2022 in Dubai.

Shapshap beat Datoms of India in the category and received an $8,000 cash prize. According to the organisers, the winner of this category is usually selected from startups that are shaping the future of urban mobility or sustainable urban living by building a product or service advancing our lives by solving challenges in transportation, road safety, IoT, autonomous driving, e-mobility, sustainable city management, sharing economy, or digital services.

Founded in 2019, ShapShap is an on-demand motorbike delivery service that utilises data and mobile technology to enable the highly inefficient same-day delivery service. As of April 2022, the startup has completed over 40,000 deliveries in Abuja and Lagos.

"I'm excited about winning the supernova challenge in the mobility and smart city category at GITEX 2022. It is a huge win for me and my team," Khalil Halilu, CEO of ShapShap, said.

The company's platform consists of two SaaS offerings; a logistics app for drivers and vendors as well as an e-commerce app for vendors. The apps have a suite of features addressing all aspects of delivery logistics from routing to payments and analytics. The ShapShap platform implements a cross-pooling option, enabling drivers to earn money through deliveries from multiple channels.

Since its launch, the logistics startup has received an undisclosed seed fund from GreenTec Capital Partners and V8 Capital Partners. With the $8000 prize from this Challenge, the company will continue to drive its expansion across Nigeria. "What is most important to us is the network and new partnerships that we have built as a result of this competition, it will enable us to scale. We also intend to expand across Nigeria and other territories in Africa," Halilu told Benjamindada.com.

The Supernova Challenge is arguably the biggest pitch competition in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. At the finals of the challenge organised by North Star, three African startups—Nigeria's FLOEWS and ShapShap and Kenyan Melanin Kapital—were selected. The trio emerged as finalists out of more than 800 startups across the world.

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"It is quite encouraging that out of over 800 entries, nine Nigerian Startups emerged semi-finalists, leading to two finalists before ShapShap won the smart city and mobility category of the awards. We are delighted that our startup innovation is not only amazing but goes through a lot of critical thinking, not a superficial approach. That is why with this latest award we hope to continue to improve our digital startup ranking globally," Isa Pantami, Nigeria's Minister of Communication and Digital Economy said.

A Kenyan impact investment firm, Melanin Capital won the Africa Fast category of the Supernova Challenge over Nigeria's FLOEWS, a food security company.