Leaders in Nigeria recently announced a new fund to help young tech investors with raising money for burgeoning businesses.
Announced through a statement, the fund was created by the Vice President, Yemu Osinbajo, under their “Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises,” also known as their iDICE program. The fund, which will be allocated mostly towards tech companies in the capital of Abuja, amounts to a grand total of $618 million.
Of the five contributors, the African Development Bank and the Agence Francaise de Developpement are amongst the ones that have donated the most, giving $170 million and $116 million, respectively. To receive a portion of the fund, investors around the ages of 15 to 35 are the applicants that are considered the most. Along with the monetary boost to provide necessary resources, the fund also offers other forms of help, including mentorship tips and training.
“iDICE is a government initiative to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in the digital tech and creative industries and especially targeted at job creation,” Osinbajo said at the announcement of the iDICE fund, per Reuters.
In recent years, Nigeria has become a hub for the creation of tech startups. According to a report by Statista, over 3,360 tech startups were created over the course of 2022. This number is the highest out of every country on the continent; in comparison, Kenya and South Africa- the two countries that hold second and third place in this title- have less than half of these numbers. Whereas Kenya is home to nearly 1,000 tech startups, South Africa has just about 660 of these startups newly created in the calendar year of 2022.
Although there’s been an increase in newly created startups, there have been recent layoffs in tech startups across all of Nigeria. Just last month, fintech company, Chipper Cash, parted with another round of employees in their latest employee firings. The new layoffs come after approximately 12.5% of the company’s entire workforce was fired, most notably in the engineering division.
“The last two years were a period of rapid growth and scaling for us as a business and, to reflect this, our global headcount grew by around 250 people,” said the CEO, Ham Serunjogi, per outlet TechCrunch. “However, given the macroeconomic climate, we are narrowing our current focus to core markets and products – concentrating our efforts where we know we can thrive. With this hyper-focused prioritization, the reality is that we, unfortunately, need a smaller team at Chipper.”
