The fourth season of the FMN Prize for Innovation recently concluded with an exciting finale that showcased Nigeria’s brightest agricultural entrepreneurs. This season had about 2000 entries, each vying for the ultimate Prize money of ₦5,000,000, ₦3,000,000 & ₦2,000,000 and other support that the Group offers to winners. After months of rigorous evaluation, mentorship, and pitching, three outstanding innovators emerged victorious, securing substantial funding to scale their groundbreaking solutions.
Let’s meet the champions who impressed the judges with their vision and execution.
First Place: Levitate Aquaria & Breeder Farms
Leading the pack with their expertise in sustainable agriculture, Levitate Aquaria & Breeder Farms clinched the top position and won ₦5 million prize money. The company specialises in helping livestock farmers produce healthy animal protein source at low cost of production and with high survival rate to eradicate any health challenges that are associated with poor animal nutrition due to unreasonable usage of conventional veterinary drugs. They have notable lists of levitate medications for livestocks like; levitate organic antibiotics for livestock including poultry birds and other ruminants’ animal. Levitate antiviral drugs combats any form of viral disease in livestock, Levitate organic multivitamins, Levitate organic egg booster for layers, and Levitate lasota and gumboro vaccines for poultry use. All these products are designed using spices, leaves, shrubs, and roots. Their innovative approach provides sustainable and affordable livestock nutrition while promoting eco-friendly farming practices.
Second Place: Vet Konect
Securing second place and ₦3 million in funding, Vet Konect is a digital animal health company leveraging technology to enable access to animal care and social protection for livestock farmers and pet owners across Africa. Vet Konect is reimagining animal care using technology to ensure that livestock farmers have access to 24/7 resources that will help them grow their business and tackle food insecurity in the country. Thus far, Vet Konect has onboarded over 3,000 animal health professionals and served over 30,000 animal owners since launching. In 2024, they successfully enumerated over 105,000 livestock farmers who will be integrated into animal care coverage. Their vision is to reach 5 million Africans by 2030, regardless of the barriers of distance. Founded by Terese Shadrach Akpem, the platform connects farmers with veterinarians through mobile devices, ensuring timely healthcare services for their animals regardless of location.
Third Place: Bionet Innovations
Rounding out the top three with ₦2 million prize money, Bionet Innovations specializes in converting food waste and livestock droppings into high-protein animal nutrition. They are also developing LiveTag, a lightweight, reusable smart animal health monitoring system that uses artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and machine learning to provide real-time livestock health insights. By collecting and analyzing data, the system detects early signs of disease, abnormal behavior, and feeding patterns, helping farmers take preventive actions through their mobile app. Bionet Innovations operates both B2C and B2B business models.
The three winners exemplify the ingenuity and practical problem-solving that the FMN Prize for Innovation seeks to promote. From sustainable livestock nutrition to digital veterinary services and AI-driven animal health monitoring, these innovations address critical challenges across Nigeria’s agricultural value chain.
The GMD/CEO of FMN, Boye Olusanya, in his comment, reiterated the Company’s key strategic imperative of localizing sustainability: “The FMN sustainability agenda is through content localization, that is, investing in the development of local capacity to reduce dependency on imported raw materials. The FMN Prize for Innovation is one of the ways the Business is driving this agenda, by building sustainable food systems through collaboration and support of SMEs in the agro sector who are consistently driving growth through innovation.”
The winners of the Prize money will continue to receive invaluable support and mentorship from the FMN team to ensure that the won prize money is effectively utilized for business growth whilst scaling their various businesses through strategic expansions and growth.