Innovest Nurtures 20 Emerging African Startups

Innovest Africa has empowered the next generation of African entrepreneurs by supporting 20 promising startups.

At its second edition of investment summit 2.0 and demo day in Abuja yesterday, 20 bold and innovative founders pitched their startups.

The event, organised under the theme: “Catalysing Investment in African Startups,” advocated for government policies that support the startup ecosystem while allowing businesses to thrive independently.

The founder of Innovest Africa, Femi Moito, said the hope is to help African-founded startups secure investments.

He said that through its accelerator programme, Innovest focuses on supporting entrepreneurs outside Lagos, targeting ecosystems like Abuja and northern Nigeria.

“A lot of Nigerian founders have fantastic ventures, but they lack easy access to funding. So that’s the problem we’re trying to solve. Today, we had an accelerator program where we worked with Nigerian founders.

“Particularly, we are looking outside the Lagos ecosystem because Lagos is where everybody is.

“So, we looked at other ecosystems like the Abuja ecosystem, the northern ecosystem, and brought in founders to work with them over eight weeks, teaching them how to structure their business, improve their business models, their revenue models, how to pitch their startups and all of that. So today, at the Demo Day, they’ll present to the audience.

“In this audience, there are a lot of investors, ecosystem partners, and ecosystem builders. The goal is that, in the end, we will choose the startups that closely align with our investment thesis, and we will invest in some of them.

“We’re also hoping that they will get investors interested in what they’re doing and invest in them as well.”

When asked about the issue of unemployment in Africa, Moito said there was a need for more private-sector-driven solutions. “We think leaving everything to the government may not necessarily be the best approach.

“Let the government create policies to support the startup ecosystem, and then we can thrive in the right environment.”