As entrepreneurship continue to grow in Nigeria, organisations are taking it upon themselves to support the growing number of SMEs and startups by providing funding opportunities and incubator/accelerator programmes, where they receive guidance till their businesses are off the ground.
Here are a few incubators and accelerators supporting startups in Nigeria.
StartPreneurs invests in and accelerates innovative Nigerian startups, and speeds up all entrepreneurial development through a combination of financial support and hands-on guidance. The 3 month-long accelerator program covers the Model Phase, Validation Phase and Expansion phase.
There’s also the Startpreneurs Youth Acceleration Program (SYAP), where children and youths are aided to activate and develop their ideas, dreams, skills and confidence.
CcHUB offers Pre-incubation and Incubation programmess to startups. For the pre-incubation programme, idea proponents/teams are provided with mentoring, pre-seed funding, project planning, usability testing and customer validation for their solutions. Once the solutions begins to gain traction generate revenue, such teams ‘graduate’ to the incubation program, where they receive mentoring, business development, administrative and funding support to test their models
So far, over fifty (50) ideas have enjoyed Cchub’s support through the pre-Incubation and incubation programmes, including notable ventures like BudgIT, WeCyclers, and, Vacantboards.
Wennovation Hub is a pioneer innovation accelerator that focuses on social impact sectors, including Education, Agriculture, Healthcare and Infrastructure.
The hub grooms hight impact businesses that tackle Unemployment, Poverty, and Underdevelopment in Africa, and helps new and startup companies to develop by providing services such as management training, co-creation workspace, and business support.
440.ng focuses on investing in early stage tech startups in Nigeria. The 440.ng program consists of 12 weeks of guided product development and customer acquisition support, as well as hands-on training and mentorship. One of the major focuses of the program is the development of market strategies for maintaining the viability of a company.
The program has provided support for a number of notable companies, including Gingerbox, FuelVoucher and Pass.ng.
Ventures Platform is a seed stage fund and accelerator that finds, funds and supports innovative companies solving real problems across the African continent.
Once a year, they invest in 10-15 companies. These companies operate from Venture Platform for a period of 6 weeks, and during this period, they receive guidance on how to build great products; talk to users and sell, they also receive support that they require to grow fast.
Since its inception, Spark has raised millions of dollars to support a portfolio consisting of 12 startups. The incubator offers investments ranging $50,000 to $150,000 and has a track record of helping underdog startups come out on top.
The incubator has so far supported notables companies including Hotels.ng, a hotel booking startup; ToLet.ng, a home rentals classifieds; and Giddimint, a fashion eCommerce startup.
Idea Hub is an incubator and accelerator for Information Technology Developers.
Its programmes are aimed at supporting a new generation of Nigerian digital entrepreneurs to develop innovative solutions and models that make businesses and commerce more efficient, provide new ways to deliver government/social services and help reduce poverty and unemployment.
iDEA Hub has so far incubated over 50 startups.
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