Lagos Startup Wins $3K After Subscription-Sharing Pitch

What started as friends coordinating Netflix payments in a WhatsApp chat has turned into a funded tech platform serving over 1,000 customers across Lagos.

Subify, a subscription-sharing platform that helps people split costs on digital services, just won the 2026 Proof Lab challenge and secured $3,000 in total funding after pitching at Tech Revolution Africa 2.0 in Lagos. The startup began in 2021 when co-founders Israel Oladipupo Ogunseye, Elizabeth Anuoluwapo Ogunseye, and David Akinmoyede were simply trying to stop subscriptions from draining their wallets.

As more friends joined their coordination effort, managing payments and reminders became overwhelming. That frustration pushed them to build an actual platform, which officially launched in October 2025 at usesubify.com.

At the Tech Revolution Africa conference held at Landmark Event Centre, CEO Israel Oladipupo Ogunseye pitched Subify during the Startup Fest segment. The team placed second in the initial pitch competition, then got selected as one of three startups invited into Proof Lab, a intense one-week product sprint testing their ability to execute under pressure.

On February 13, 2026, Subify presented their sprint results to a four-member judging panel and won the challenge, earning $1,000 in support. Then something unexpected happened: angel investor Ashley Barrett, visiting Lagos for the first time, awarded them an additional $2,000 on the spot.

"After watching the live judging, Subify felt like a team worth supporting, clear on the problem, sharp in execution, and ready for what's next," Barrett said.

The Ripple Effect

Subify's win highlights a shift happening across African tech. Founders are building solutions for everyday financial pressures, not just flashy innovation for its own sake.

The platform addresses real pain points: awkward payment reminders between friends, trust issues when sharing accounts, and the feeling of overpaying for services you genuinely need but can't afford alone. By creating structure around what people were already doing informally, Subify turns frustration into infrastructure.

"This win is proof that what began as a simple WhatsApp workaround can become real infrastructure for how Africans access digital services," said CTO David Akinmoyede.

The team plans to use their funding to improve trust and verification features, expand the types of subscriptions they support, and build partnerships that make shared access work at scale. They're focused on making premium digital tools accessible to more people without compromising security or convenience.

Thousands of people are already coordinating shared subscriptions the hard way, and Subify just proved there's a better path forward.