Omniretail, a B2B enablement platform focusing on digital infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa, is proud to announce it has secured the top position in the Financial Times (FT) ranking of Africa’s Fastest-Growing Companies for 2024. The ranking, now in its third year, continues to highlight the dynamism and growth of companies in sectors including fintech, renewable energy, healthcare, e-commerce, and agriculture. 

The FT presents Africa’s Fastest Growing Companies list comprising innovative, modern, companies growing at scale, that are the driving force of the international economy in the 21st century. The Financial Times partners with Statista, to produce similar rankings for companies in Europe, Asia, and America. The inclusion of OmniRetail as part of this prestigious list is a testament to its success and exceptional performance. Similar to the ranking for other markets, the Africa list places companies by their compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in revenue between 2019 and 2022. OmniRetail has grown by 772.39% over these 3 years, making it Africa’s fastest-growing company in 2024.

Launched in 2019, OmniBiz is the flagship product of OmniRetail, a distribution platform that digitises the supply chain from distributors to retailers by embracing a retailer-first, asset-light approach. OmniBiz enables retailers to place orders directly from manufacturers. These orders are fulfilled by partner distributors, who specialise in warehousing, while transportation responsibilities are delegated to third-party logistics providers, ensuring delivery to retailers within 24 hours. OmniRetail is building a collaborative platform that includes other innovative tools like OmniPay and Mplify, which equips retailers with essential resources and tools to procure products, build and access credit, and optimise their business for higher profitability and scale. With over 140,000 small retailers and over 200 brands onboarded, OmniRetail aims to redefine the retail industry in Africa. 

Deepankar Rustagi, CEO of OmniRetail, said, “We’re proud to enter the FT Africa’s fastest-growing list for the first time and even more so to be at the top of the list. This is a tribute to the hard work and perseverance of everyone at OmniRetail. Africa deserves a robust digital infrastructure layered on top of the existing informal retail sector, and we’re proud of the progress we’ve made so far. We are equally proud of our work towards empowering and supporting more retailers previously excluded by the financial ecosystem and those experiencing cash flow issues to enhance their supply chain processes. 

Mastercard is enhancing the Engage program and Fintech Express platform, making it even easier for fintechs and enablers to partner with Mastercard to quickly build and deploy solutions globally.

Engage now includes new benefits for partners and a self-service portal that enables fintechs to access exclusive resources, increase brand visibility and secure localized support. As for Fintech Express, Mastercard is introducing an end-to-end experience for card issuance and will be adding applications for Tap on Phone, Mastercard Gateway, QR acceptance and more, helping fintechs accelerate from application to launch in a simple, fast and transparent way.

Mastercard Engage connects a network of qualified enablers to any customer – banks, merchants, payment service providers (PSPs), fintechs – to help them expedite their migration to digital (e.g., embedding tokenization, Click to Pay or push provisioning capabilities) and can help deploy technologies related to open banking, installments and more.

Engage also features a new search tool that gives customers more detailed information about partners, including contact details, case studies and service descriptions so they can more efficiently locate the right partners to help them build and deploy new solutions. In turn, partners can boost their own growth through access to exclusive resources such as dedicated educational sessions, localized support, promotional opportunities and lead generation tools.

More than 170 qualified partners are part of the Engage program today. Entrust, FOO, Giesecke+Devrient, HST, IDEMIA, Thales, Verestro and many others support deployment of more than 30 products and services from tokenization and digital wallets to Click to Pay and digital assets. Over the last six years, more than 500 million cards have been equipped with a Mastercard product through the Engage program.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has kicked off activities for the third edition of its Talent Hunt Research through Hackathon as part of giving expression to its Strategic Vision Plan 2023-2025, which is to encourage the development of new technologies and indigenous content through cutting-edge research. The goal of this initiative is to stimulate sustainable economic growth and development in Nigeria.

Therefore, the Commission has invited Tech Hubs, and Innovation-Driven Enterprises (IDEs) in Nigeria to enrol their start-ups and their solutions in the Talent Hunt Research through a Hackathon organised by NCC. The Hackathon focuses on Blockchain-enabled Data Protection Solutions for Enhancing Regulatory Compliance; Assistive Technology Solutions for the Elderly and People with Disabilities; and Technology Solutions for Renewable Energy in Rural Areas.

The NCC Talent Hunt Research Through Hackathon leverages Emerging Digital Technologies to facilitate the development of home-grown innovative solutions and local content development in the telecommunications sector while fostering economic growth and social advancement in Nigeria.

The competition enables the translation of novel ideas into the development of hardware/software solutions that address industry and societal challenges. The best three solutions, one from each of the three areas listed above will receive grants of N10 million each for the development of the solutions.

The Commission has set out eligibility criteria for those seeking to participate in the competition, which include that the Enterprise must provide a certificate of registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), the Enterprise must not have previously received support from the Commission, the project should have clear relevance to one of the three thematic areas above, it must provide a clear problem statement, proposed solution, and roadmap to deployment.

Other requirements include a proof of concept (which may also include technical feasibility of the idea with diagram, algorithm, existing models, or case studies; the solution must be novel with the applicant making a declarative statement on ownership of the intellectual property, the solution including prototype development shall be concluded within 6 months of receipt of the Grant and must propose a detailed commercialization plan of the prototype.

The Entry Submission format indicated that the proposal must include ideation,

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and solution, Current Sweat Equity Investment, Product-Market Fit status, Verifiable Go-to-Market status, Growth Feasibility Assurances, Maturity Model and Timeliness and existing time: Disaster Recovery, where applicable

All applications should be made online and must follow the stipulated entry format and there is no financial cost to participating in the competition while full control and ownership of the intellectual property of the developed solutions remain with the Commission.

The entries must be made by a Tech Hub/Innovation-Driven Enterprise that must show evidence of the relationship with the Start-up/solution being entered, a 4-page Executive summary of the project concept, a 3-5 minute video of the pilot project, names, age, contact details, passport photos and profile of all team members and the website (if available) as well as an E-mail address of the applicant.

All interested and qualified enterprises should submit requested documents in a zip folder to https://ncc.gov.ng/talenthuntresearchhackathon2023 with the subject of the mail titled “Submission from <business name>” and the zipped file named after the business.