{"id":7892,"date":"2026-11-03T17:01:53","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T17:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/03\/acecores-wins-10000-grand-prize-at-tc-battlefield-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T17:01:53","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T17:01:53","slug":"acecores-wins-10000-grand-prize-at-tc-battlefield-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/03\/acecores-wins-10000-grand-prize-at-tc-battlefield-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Acecores wins $10,000 grand prize at TC Battlefield 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Acecore, a Nigerian startup that builds home energy storage systems<\/a>, won TC Battlefield 2026 at Moonshot by TechCabal<\/a> in Lagos on Thursday, October 29, taking home the $10,000 grand prize. <\/p>\n

Supplya, which gives informal retailers stock on credit<\/a>, came second and won $5,000. Navidyn, a maritime robotics startup<\/a>, came third with $2,500.<\/p>\n

Caleb Iwuoha, Acecore\u2019s founder and chief executive, told the judges at Wednesday\u2019s final that the system\u2019s casing and battery management software were \u201call built here in Nigeria by our very own hands.\u201d <\/p>\n

Acecore sells a home battery system and a smart socket that lets users control their appliances. It says its system costs more than 20% less than comparable products, and a partner bank lets customers pay in instalments<\/p>\n

The startup is building locally in a market that imports most of its power hardware. Nigeria imported 1,721 megawatts of solar panels from China in the 12 months to June 2025, making it Africa\u2019s second-largest importer after South Africa, according to the energy think tank Ember<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Supplya receives the first runner-up prize. Image source: Chukwuebuka Mgbojikwe\/TechCabal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The three winners were chosen from 10 finalists that also included Growwr, Kuraway, Fertitude, Lena, QiqiFarms, Riwe and Swiftway Shippers. The judges were Folakemi Osho, general manager of HoaQ; Elijah Shokenu, head of ventures at SWIT; Kosen Kenta, principal at Antler; and Adeniyi Adebayo, chief business officer of Yango Group, which sponsored the competition.<\/p>\n

Acecore faced the toughest questions on price. One judge pointed out that imported Chinese systems land in Nigeria at a price similar to Acecore\u2019s, which starts at about $5,250, and pressed Iwuoha on his unit economics. He said the company runs a 62% margin.<\/p>\n

Navidyn, which builds underwater robots to inspect offshore oil and gas sites, made the broader case for hardware. \u201cSo far, Africa has invested in fintech, logtech, agritech, edtech. Now it\u2019s time to invest in advanced AI and robotics,\u201d its co-founders told the judges. The startup says a Sahara Group representative brought it a $5,000 inspection job before its product was ready.<\/p>\n

Supplya, the runner-up, says it has extended more than $150,000 in credit to small shops since October 2024, and that 98% has been repaid.<\/p>\n

Navidyn and Supplya, along with the women\u2019s health app Fertitude, also won places in Antler\u2019s residency programme, where they can raise up to $250,000 in pre-seed investment.<\/p>\n

Two of this year\u2019s three podium spots went to startups building physical products in Nigeria, a slower and costlier path than software. If Acecore and Navidyn can hold their margins against imports, they will show investors that hardware made in Nigeria can compete on price as well as on story.<\/p>\n

Source: <\/p>\n

TechCabal<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acecore, a Nigerian startup that builds home energy storage systems, won TC Battlefield 2026 at Moonshot by TechCabal in Lagos on Thursday, October 29, taking home the $10,000 grand prize.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}