FG Nigeria to Release Money for Innovation Seed Fund to Create Over 35,000 Jobs

The Federal Government of Nigeria to released money for innovation fund as seed fund to grow local technology start-ups. This is expected to create up to 35,000 jobs in the country.

The seed fund will work in hand with the $50 million target seed fund which an investment company, EchoVC, has promised to inject for the growth of African tech startups.


EchoVC is the sole manager of the Federal Government’s fund. The company, a Lagos-based venture capital seed and early stage technology-focused also promised to fill the seed fund and early stage financing gap.

The Managing Partner of the company, Mr. Eghosa Omoigui who disclosed this during a press conference in Lagos said that his company plans to make investment of $1.5 million per startup with a goal of making forty to fifty investments throughout the life of the fund.

Existing investors, he said included a  mix of domestic and foreign institutional investors and asset managers. “We made four investments in Nigeria in 2015 and anticipate making up to 10 seed-stage investments in 2016”, he said. 

He said that companies backed up by venture capital have been a major driver of technology innovation, economic growth and job creation over the last forty years. The company’s investment in disruptive and innovative technology startups in Nigeria that grow to become category leaders, he said would transform opportunities currently available to the ever growing population.

Institutional angel funding

Part of the plan of the company to support tech startups, according to him was to fill the seed and early stage gap by providing mentorship and institutional angel funding to promising entrepreneurs and co-developing and stimulating the existing local angel community.

Working with portfolio companies to enhance value and exit value, deliver value added with formal knowledge transfer frameworks that cross-polinate US, Asia, Africa based entrepreneur insight, co-invest in first institutional financing of emerging market technology companies with traction, he added are part of their plans.

“Our strategy underpins a disruptive approach: to invest at the intersection of consumer, media, commerce, data technology & mobile devices layered by networked knowledge. We target equity and equity-related seed and early stage technology investments in Nigeria (and the broader Pan-African region). “Nigeria, as one of the main growth drivers for Africa, is also one of the primary growth drivers for the firm. We seek to capitalize on Nigeria’s burgeoning period of growth in technology innovation and identify and invest in next generation companies that will lead this technology renaissance across the continent.

“The fund will also opportunistically evaluate investment opportunities in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Ethiopia”, he explained. According to him, EchoVC makes investments of $1.5M per startup with a goal of making forty to fifty investments throughout the life of the fund. Specific technology sectors of interest according to him included consumer Internet and Services, Data, Mobile, Social, Digital Media, Content and Advertising, e-commerce, Software, linguistics, Gaming, Business intelligent, last-mile services, among others.

Growing markets

“Our strategy underpins a disruptive approach: to invest at the intersection of consumer, media, commerce, data technology & mobile devices layered by networked knowledge. We target equity and equity-related seed and early stage technology investments in Nigeria (and the broader Pan-African region). The ICT Innovation Fund (with a $10million commitment from NITDA), to be managed by EchoVC, he said was officially announced in September 2014 by the then Hon. Minister, Federal Ministry of Communications Technology, Dr. Omobola Johnson.