Nosa Alekhuogie
TechQuest STEM Academy and Partners recently played host to Early Stage Angel Investors and startups in Lekki, Lagos, where some startups were given opportunity to pitch their products and ideas.
The Chairman of Cadbury Nigeria Plc, and co-founder Lagos Angel Network, Adedotun Suleiman, who shared some insights, said: “It is early days for the Nigerian startup scene despite successes such as those of Flutterwave and Paystack amongst others. The jury is still out, and investors will have to think long term.”
The session hosted startup pitches from GoMarket, Nodex, Nifty Row, amongst others. The wide range of startups were solving problems covering e-commerce, NFT, hardware, crypto amongst others. Uche Aniche, Convener, Startup South and co-host of the Mixer, introduced the South South East Angel Network (SSEAN) to the gathering. “We believe that startups outside key financial centres such as Lagos and Abuja also require the funding needed to build out their propositions. That is why we started SSEAN and it is also the reason why we co-opt accredited investors with sessions like this”, Aniche said.
Founder of TechQuest STEM Academy who also co-founded Nigeria’s first university embedded incubator at the University of Nigeria, Roar Nigeria Hub, Mr. Charles Emembolu, enjoined the startups to embrace education and healthy business practices that ensure successful outcomes, scalable businesses, social impact with good return to investors. “The new TechQuest 350-capacity Hub is designed to support thousands of technology talent with work ready skills, placement and the funding that they may require to participate in the global digital economy,” Emembolu said.
