Nigeria’s music tech startup Songdis has been announced as one of the five winning companies in the 2025 NBA Africa Triple-Double Accelerator, securing a place in Carnegie Mellon University Africa’s Business Incubation Program, a milestone opportunity created to help early-stage African innovators scale their solutions globally. The program, now in its second year, received more than 700 applications from 32 countries across the continent before selecting ten finalists to pitch live in Kigali, Rwanda. Songdis emerged as one of the companies recognized for building an artist-first distribution ecosystem designed specifically for independent African musicians.
The accelerator supports companies working at the intersection of technology, sport and entertainment, and offers more than prize money. Each winning startup gains access to CMU-Africa’s Innovation Hub, hands-on product development support, and a full 12-month incubation journey with industry mentors and technical partners. For Songdis, the value is the platform it opens: global expertise, technical guidance, strategic networks, and the structure required to transform a fast-growing startup into a scalable, market-ready solution for the music ecosystem.
Songdis was founded in 2024 by Nigerian entrepreneurs Melody Nehemiah & Obed Ugwu, built around a frustration he watched independent artists face for years: slow or incomplete royalty payments, platforms without local currency support, limited access to real marketing tools, and a lack of distribution built around the realities of African creators. Instead of forcing artists to adapt to systems created for different markets, Songdis was created to give them ownership and a clearer path to getting their music heard around the world. Since its launch, the platform has grown from a small team into a distribution network serving thousands of artists across Africa and the diaspora.
Nehemiah describes Songdis as a platform built to put creators first, offering fast and transparent royalty payouts, access to 200+ streaming platforms, personalized artist support, music publishing, marketing tools and analytics, and guidance for musicians navigating the industry without label infrastructure.
The journey to the pitch day was intense. In a post reflecting on the accelerator experience, Nehemiah shared on Instagram that Songdis went from being one of more than 700 applicants to making it into the top 12 and eventually the final 10. The four months leading up to the pitch included back-to-back mentorship sessions, high-pressure feedback loops, and what he describes as “plenty of learning and unlearning,” shaping both the product and his leadership as a founder. He credits the guidance of NBA Vice President Mike Taylor as a major influence during the program, helping him sharpen the company’s vision and operational approach.
Millennials across Africa and in the diaspora have the same picture of what the world should look like. We are documenting it in the coolest ways 🤘
