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On April 11, at the Ecobank Pan-African Centre in Lagos, five female founders pitched their businesses to a panel of judges, and for three of them, it paid off.
As part of the second edition of the BeautyHut Africa Women's Grant Initiative, Busha partnered with BeautyHut Africa to award ₦6 million in equity-free funding to three female-led beauty businesses.
The Businesses That Won
After a live pitch session judged by Omolara Dada, Product Marketing Manager at Busha Business, and top players in Nigeria’s beauty industry, three businesses emerged at the top:
- 1st place: Inveo Labs
- 2nd place: Tulivu Fragrance
- 3rd place: SavedSkin Cosmeceuticals
The founder of Inveo Labs put it best: "Winning this grant is a defining moment for Inveo Labs, but beyond the funding, this platform has given us visibility and validation that what we are building matters."
That line says a lot. Because for early-stage founders, capital is rarely the only thing missing. Often, it's proof that someone with skin in the game looked at what you're building and said yes.
The Funding Gap is Real
Nigeria has no shortage of female entrepreneurial talent. Women are building businesses across every sector, and the beauty industry — one of the fastest-growing in Africa — is increasingly being led by them.
The global beauty and personal care market is projected to exceed $700 billion in the coming years. African founders are a real part of that story. But access to funding hasn't kept pace.
Most early-stage female-led businesses are bootstrapped longer than they should be, not because the ideas aren't good, but because the doors to rooms like this one don't always open easily. The BeautyHut Africa Grant, powered by Busha, is one way to change that.
What Busha Brings Beyond the Grant
Busha's involvement didn't start and end with writing a cheque.
Beyond the funding, each winning founder was set up with a Busha Business account, giving them direct access to crypto payments and stablecoin infrastructure to help them operate, collect payments, and scale across Nigeria and international markets at no cost.
Here's how each business can start receiving stablecoins with their Busha Business account:
- Payment Links: Each founder can set up a payment link in minutes and start receiving stablecoins from customers anywhere in the world, without needing a website.
- Busha Pay Plugin: For businesses already on Shopify or WooCommerce, the Busha Pay plugin connects to their store and sets them up to accept stablecoins with no technical heavy lifting, alongside their other payment options.
- API Integration: For founders who want stablecoin infrastructure custom-built into their own platform, Busha’s API integrates stablecoins directly into their checkout flow.
However their customers pay — naira, dollars, pounds, or Kenyan shillings— payments settle in stablecoins.
That means exchange rate swings no longer eat into their margins, and they can plan inventory, pay suppliers, and grow with a cash position they can actually predict.
For these three founders looking to take their beauty business to the next level, that's the infrastructure that makes it possible.
The Bigger Picture
Busha's support for this initiative falls under our Social Impact arm, specifically the Empowerment Pillar. But it also reflects a practical reality: the businesses most likely to grow are the ones that get both capital and the right tools early on.
BeautyHut Africa's Subulola Oyeleye said it plainly: "This is just the beginning of what we believe will be a new wave of scalable, women-led beauty businesses in Africa."
We're inclined to agree.
Ready to set up crypto payments for your business? Explore Busha Business — payment links, plugins, and APIs built for founders who are ready to go global.
