Lagos’ food and lifestyle scene came alive on December 17 and 18, 2025, as thousands of guests gathered for the Foodie in Lagos Festival. A two-day celebration of food, drinks, music, and family-friendly experiences. Curated by Foodie in Lagos, the festival brought together 53 carefully selected vendors spanning food, lifestyle, and creative brands, alongside families and creators, for an immersive end-of-year experience that captured the true spirit of Detty December. 

Hosted in a vibrant open-air setting at Encourage Park, Ikoyi, the festival transformed the venue into a bustling hub of flavour, colour, and sound — offering guests the opportunity to eat, explore, shop, connect, and unwind. Over the course of two days, the festival welcomed over 3,000 attendees, underscoring its growing status as a key fixture on Lagos’ Detty December lifestyle calendar.

Watch highlights from the Foodie in Lagos Festival below. 

A Thoughtfully Curated Food Experience

At the heart of the festival was food and plenty of it. Across two days, the festival’s food vendors delivered a diverse range of offerings spanning Nigerian classics, grills, desserts, street food favourites, cocktails, and contemporary fusion dishes. From familiar crowd favourites to exciting new discoveries, attendees were spoilt for choice as they moved from stall to stall sampling flavours and discovering new brands.

The festival’s layout encouraged exploration, with clearly defined vendor zones and relaxed communal seating that made it easy for guests to enjoy meals with friends and family. Many vendors reported sell-outs across both days, reinforcing the festival’s reputation as a key platform for food businesses looking to connect directly with their audience.

More Than a Food Festival

While food was the star, the Foodie in Lagos Festival delivered much more than just great meals. Live DJ sets by DJ Slymn & Guest DJ Lolahstic kept the energy high throughout the day, while a DJ battle and artiste performances turned the evenings into a lively celebration. A live band performance added a soulful touch, giving guests moments to slow down, sing along, dance, and soak in the atmosphere. The Festival was anchored by Deji Osikoya on Day One, with MC Obinna taking over hosting duties on Day Two, while Oludamee hosted the festival’s red carpet — ensuring seamless flow, high energy, and engaging moments throughout the event on both days.

Interactive brand activations dotted the venue, creating engaging experiences that blended seamlessly into the festival environment. From kids’ play areas and game zones to experiential brand spaces and garden-style seating, brands connected meaningfully with guests without disrupting the flow of the event.

Family-Friendly Fun at the Christmas Village

One of the standout attractions was the Christmas Village, curated in partnership with Tinsel Town and thoughtfully integrated into the festival experience. Designed with families in mind, the village offered a range of festive and creative activities for children, making the festival a truly inclusive event.

Young guests enjoyed bead-making workshops, cookie decorating classes, a Santa Grotto experience, and performances at the Elf Play House Theatre. Pamper sessions by Dermaspace added a gentle wellness element, ensuring both kids and parents could relax and enjoy the moment.

The Christmas Village reflected the festival’s commitment to creating a space where families could participate fully, rather than feeling like an afterthought.

Powered by Strong Brand Partnerships

The Foodie in Lagos Festival was supported by a strong lineup of partners who helped elevate the overall experience. Sponsors including Jameson, Flutterwave, Desperados, Mich & Kay, Nestlé Pure Life, Lagos State Parks & Gardens Agency (LASPARK), Page Asset Management Limited, Luxe Bounce, and 88 Games contributed to the seamless execution of the event.

Media partners BellaNaija, Olori Supergal, and My Lagos App helped amplify the festival’s reach, ensuring moments from the event travelled far beyond the venue.

A Defining Moment for Foodie in Lagos

For Foodie in Lagos, the festival marked a defining milestone, translating over a decade of digital food storytelling into a shared, real-world experience. Founded in 2013, Foodie in Lagos has grown into one of the city’s most trusted voices in food and lifestyle, consistently shaping conversations around where and how Lagos eats.

As the platform’s second festival, the Foodie in Lagos Festival reflected both the depth of its community and the strength of the trust it has built with audiences, vendors, and brands over the years. What began as an online dining guide has evolved into a platform capable of curating large-scale, community-driven experiences that celebrate Lagos’ ever-evolving food culture.

Held on December 17 and 18, 2025, the Foodie in Lagos Festival firmly established itself as a standout on Lagos’ Detty December calendar. Its inclusion in CNN’s 2025 Detty December line-up further underscored the festival’s growing cultural relevance, placing it among the season’s most anticipated food and lifestyle events.

If you missed out on the experience, highlights from the Foodie in Lagos Festival are available to view across Foodie in Lagos’ digital platforms.

For more information, please visit the Website.
Instagram: @foodieinlagos | @foodieinlagosfest
Threads: @foodieinlagos

 

BellaNaija is a Media Partner for Foodie In Lagos

The post A Detty December to Remember: Recapping The Foodie In Lagos Festival appeared first on BellaNaija - Showcasing Africa to the world. Read today!.

Across markets in Dakar, the Senegalese capital, vendors used to lose nearly a tenth of their daily earnings just by accepting mobile payments. Every transfer from a customer came with a fee (sometimes 5%, even 10%) sliced away by the telecom companies that dominated Senegal’s mobile money market for nearly a decade. Then, in 2018, something changed.

A new player, Wave, arrived with a simple pitch: What if sending money cost almost nothing? And Senegal’s mass market quickly embraced this new order.

That promise—radically cheaper digital payments—has turned Wave into one of Africa’s most valuable startups. Now, with a fresh USD 137 M debt round led by Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) and backed by global development financiers, the company is doubling down on its mission: to make Africa the first cashless continent.

Wave’s rise reads like a playbook for how to disrupt a monopoly. Before its launch, mobile money in West Africa was controlled by telecom operators like Orange, which charged fees as high as 10% per transaction. For millions of small merchants and low-income users, those fees made digital payments more expensive than cash.

Then came Wave—no fees on deposits or withdrawals, just a flat 1% on transfers, with bill payments subsidised by businesses rather than customers. The model was so aggressively consumer-friendly that skeptics questioned its sustainability. Yet six years later, Wave is thriving.

Today, the company operates in eight West African countries, serving 20 million monthly active users through a network of 150,000 mobile money agents. In 2021, it became Francophone Africa’s first unicorn after a record-breaking USD 200 M Series A. Now, with this new funding, it’s eyeing further expansion into Central and East Africa.

The USD 137 M debt round—led by RMB and supported by British International Investment (BII), Norfund, and Finnfund—comes at a pivotal moment. Africa’s startup ecosystem has seen venture funding dip, but debt financing is emerging as an alternative, especially for companies like Wave that have provable scale and revenue.

For development financiers, the appeal is clear as Wave is well-positioned as a financial inclusion machine. “Wave’s platform is a clear example of technology enabling inclusive finance at scale,” said a representative from British International Investment. “This is aligned with our mandate to support digital infrastructure that empowers communities.”

Wave CEO and co-founder Drew Durbin said in a statement that the new “funding means we can help even more people by delivering the best possible product at the lowest possible price.”

“It brings us closer to our mission of making Africa the first cashless continent.”

The numbers back him up. In Senegal alone, Wave now processes more transactions than some traditional banks. And for two years running, it’s been the only African company on Y Combinator’s list of top 50 highest-earning startups.

Wave’s ambitions, however, face real obstacles. Regulators are watching closely as fintechs gain influence, and in some countries, telecom operators still hold political sway. Then there’s the sheer dominance of cash—90% of transactions in Africa are still offline, per World Bank data.

But if anyone can shift that balance, it might be Wave. After all, it’s already done the unthinkable once: making digital money cheaper than cash and accessible to everyone, not just the rich as in the past, while wrestling market share from telecom giants. Now, with fresh capital and a continent still ripe for disruption, it’s betting it can do it again at scale.

The post Senegal’s Wave Adds USD 137 M War Chest To Topple Africa’s Cash Habit & Costly Rivals appeared first on WeeTracker.

Source