It was an electrifying time at the Pitch For Lagos event which held at Co-Creation Hub on Thursday when about ten startups including BudgIT, Mamalette, CallBase, Alle Capital etc, gathered before AOL founders Jean and Steve Case, and Echo VC lead Eghosa Omoigui, to vie for a $55,000 prize money funded by the Steve Case Foundation.

The delectable Mo Abudu moderated the fireside chat preceding the pitch and of course EbonyLife TV handled video coverage of the well attended event.

The Cases had been to Kenya for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit as President Obama’s entrepreneurship entourage to engage with entrepreneurs and industry leaders, then stopped at Ghana before visiting Nigeria in what they hoped be “saving the last for the best,” and the Nigerian tech scene did not disappoint, according to Jean Case.

After listening to about an hour of pitches, it was clear to the audience the $55,000 prize was between mothers social platform Mamalette.com and waste recycler WeCyclers. Mamalette founder Anike Lawal was humorous and very emotional with her pitch. She certainly got the womenfolk won over. When Eghosa Omugui asked her: “If I bump into you next year and your startup had failed what would be the reason?” With the crowd listening with deafening silence, she replied slowly: “It would be because I stopped believing in my dreams.” Jean Case went into rapturous clap ovation.

Bilikisu on the other hand, had catchy punch lines like “we turn trash to cash”, had an impressive team resume, and clearly demonstrated fine understanding of its expansion strategy.

At the end of the day, WeCyclers was announced the winner of the $55,000 prize. Of course, she was ecstatic.