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Talliva AI, a startup founded by Orohu Edwin Agi from Benue State, has been selected among the top 50 innovators from more than 670 applicants for Cohort 1 of the METI UniPods AI Innovation Programme.
Talliva AI is building an AI-powered business assistant that helps small businesses keep their finances in order through WhatsApp and a web platform. We are glad to see a young company from Benue State reach this stage. Its next stop, according to the team’s announcement, is a programme bootcamp in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Talliva AI is still in beta testing and has not officially launched. The problem behind it, though, is one many business owners know well.
A ₦30 million lesson in record-keeping
Edwin’s reason for building Talliva AI is personal. While growing his own business, he had a chance to secure a ₦30 million investment. He lost it because he could not present properly structured financial records.
It is a quiet kind of failure. The business may be running and the customers may be real, but when someone asks for proof of income, expenses and profit, the answers are scattered across notebooks, phone messages and memory.
That experience showed Edwin how poor record-keeping can close doors. Investors, lenders and tax authorities all ask for organized numbers. Many small business owners have never had the time, the tools or the training to produce them. It was one of the motivations behind Talliva AI, though not the only one.
Building a simpler way to manage small business finances
Talliva AI is designed to help small businesses simplify bookkeeping, track income and expenses, generate invoices, organise financial records and understand their tax obligations.
The idea is to meet business owners where they already are. Instead of asking them to learn accounting software, Talliva AI works through WhatsApp and a web platform. A trader can describe a sale in a message or record a voice note. A receipt can be uploaded as a photo. The assistant is built to turn those everyday inputs into organized records, so owners don’t need advanced accounting knowledge.
That is the intention behind the product, and it is worth stating plainly. Talliva AI is in beta, and its capabilities are still being tested with users. What the team is aiming for is clear, though: a bookkeeping tool that feels like a conversation rather than a spreadsheet.
The team behind Talliva AI
Talliva AI is being developed by five people with different areas of focus:
- Orohu Edwin Agi, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
- Barr. Victoria Ezeigwe, Co-founder, Legal and Compliance
- Mary Joachim, Co-founder, Accounting and Tax Compliance
- Angwa Moses, Chief Technology Officer
- Egbe Christian, Product Designer, UI/UX
The mix matters for a product like this. A bookkeeping assistant has to get the technology right, but it also has to reflect how accounting, tax and compliance rules work. It has to be simple enough for someone who has never used financial software. Legal and compliance, accounting and tax, engineering and design each cover part of that challenge.
From more than 670 applicants to the top 50
The METI UniPods AI Innovation Programme drew more than 670 applicants. Talliva AI is among the 50 innovators chosen for Cohort 1, fewer than one in thirteen of those who applied.
The team says it progressed through multiple selection stages, including a final-stage interview. Following that interview, Talliva AI was selected for the METI UniPods AI Programme Bootcamp in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The team’s announcement describes the programme as METI-funded.
It helps to be precise about what this means. Selection is not winning the programme, and it is not funding or investment. Talliva AI has not completed the programme, and no funding has been announced. It is a competitive place in a programme designed for early-stage AI ventures, and for a team still in beta, that recognition counts.
The team says the programme offers a chance to strengthen its technical and business capabilities, receive structured training and mentorship, further validate the solution, and connect with opportunities that can support the startup’s growth. Validation may matter most. A tool for small businesses only proves itself when real business owners rely on it.
What comes next for Talliva AI
For now, the team’s focus is on beta testing and preparing to launch. It hopes to do so soon, but no date has been confirmed.
The longer-term ambition is to serve small businesses in Nigeria and, eventually, across Africa. That is a goal, not an achievement, and the team knows there is work ahead. Its own announcement calls this one milestone, with more work to come.
The reason to follow Talliva AI is the problem it began with. A ₦30 million opportunity slipped away because one entrepreneur’s records were not ready. If Talliva AI delivers on what it is designed to do, fewer business owners will face that moment unprepared.
For Benue State’s growing community of builders, this selection is an encouraging moment. We will keep following the team’s progress.
