A new quarter is upon us, and as adrenalised as we are to pursue our business goals in Q2, it's important that we reflect on the performance of our products, technology, and storytelling efforts in Q1.
Q1 featured company milestones, challenges, and key learnings that will shape how we refine our Q2 strategy and execute on company-wide goals.
January 2025
January is often described as the longest month of the year, and is typically a slow month for most businesses. But we saw the opposite behaviour at Salad, especially in customer activity
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In January, N140M+ in credit value was unlocked for SMEs, digital platforms, and marketplaces in our ecosystem.
✍🏽
We also welcomed Lady Kay to the team. She is the current head of storytelling and social impact at Salad Africa. Lady is a startup storyteller (Flutterwave, Clane, Jamit, TechCabal, Debbo Africa), multimedia journalist, and conference host. Kay helped us develop our social impact metrics and tracker in Q1.
February 2025
February is the shortest month of the year, but we accomplished a lot in 28 days. Just as we did in January, we took advantage of what the month had to offer us and aggressively chased after our credit disbursement, operational growth, and lead conversion goals:
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In February, we successfully completed four weeks of the Zenith Bank Incubation Program. The incubation program is a six-week long mentorship program that provides eligible startups with access to growth resources and experienced mentors and investors.
Salad Culture
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In February, we successfully completed four weeks of the Zenith Bank Incubation Program. The incubation program was a six-week long mentorship program that provided eligible startups with access to growth resources and experienced mentors and investors.
👨🏽💻
Seye Esan, who joined the company in 2024 as our Finance Operations Executive, was promoted to Credit Operations Lead after showing significant growth and performance in his role.
🤝🏽
Lady Kay successfully closed on a strategic marketing partnership with Kora. Through this partnership, we aim to strengthen our brand position in the fintech sector.
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Chikodi Ukaiwe, CEO, Salad Africa, was invited to pitch to the Plug and Play Ventures team
March 2025
March featured media milestones, speaking engagements, a demo day presentation at Zenith Bank, and Salad's social impact metrics.
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We announced our social impact metrics in March. Social impact isn't a buzzword for us; it's a compass that guides us as we work towards closing the SME funding gap in Africa. We're committed to achieving at least 50% of our targeted metrics by 2025. Read more about our social impact track here.
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We graduated from the Zenith Bank Incubator Program on March 13th. The 6-week boot-camp wrapped up with an in-person demo day with Nkechi and Lady in attendance. The incubator program was a valuable experience for us, and we're currently in talks with Zenith Bank about a potential partnership.
L-R: Lady Kay (Head, Communication and Social Impact); Nkechi Alade (COO)
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Chikodi was a panellist at the Nigeria Food Summit on Friday, March 21st. Read his review of the panel, which was about ways to automate the food industry by leveraging technology and payments, on his LinkedIn page.
Nigeria Food Summit 2025
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Salad Africa was featured in Kora's white paper about the potential of embedded finance in Africa in 2025. Download the white paper here and navigate to pages 16-19 to read the section on embedded lending.
Demo Day @ Zenith Bank
In Q2, we will be bullish about our business growth goals and vision to accelerate trade and commerce in Africa by simplifying access to business financing.
Thank you for reading our Q1 review post. For real-time updates on company news, partnerships, and product development, follow Salad Africa on LinkedIn.
For media relations and interview requests, please email [email protected]
