Despite the relentless growth in the transmission of COVID-19 in Nigeria, some enterprising Nigerians are using the seeming gloom as a launch-pad to new opportunities in different sectors of the economy.
COVID-19 has changed the way of things as emerging opportunities are attracting big private investments, redefining their operations and requiring modified skills.
Before the era of COVID-19, for instance, the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) was largely for surgeons in maintaining sterile fields during operations, while in some other cases, it was occasionally used by sick patients to prevent the spread of pathogens.
But the COVID-19 crisis has pushed the application of PPE from the shadows of critical clinical procedures to the height of it being daily used by all and sundry.
This development has created a business opportunity for those engaged in COVID-19 testing, production of face mask, sanitisers and water dispensers, among others.
Some local players in the face mask business say they get contracts from government, both at the federal and state levels, businesses, and individuals to produce customised face masks.
“At present, we are in talks with a Federal Government agency and three commercial banks on how to supply them more made-in-Aba customised face masks,” John Okiyi-Kalu, a local entrepreneur in face mask business, told BusinessDay.
While some are building opportunities around testing or PPE, others are looking to erase the need.
Azuka Ijekeye, founder of Interstreet Messenger Technologies, built a COVID-19 sample collection booth that can ramp up testing, and eliminate what had quickly became a perennial need for PPE.
“We realised that though sample collection is very important because it leads to testing, the biggest constraint was personal protective equipment. It is expensive, usually used only once and mostly required at the frontline where the doctors and nurses are attending directly to patients,” Ijekeye told BusinessDay.
The CEO’s idea was to reduce the need for PPE through its TS Module.
The module acts as a positive pressure COVID-19 test sample collection booth, which delivers a sealed, sterile environment for medical staff, blotting out direct contact between healthcare professionals and patients.
Designed as a 2-station booth with a positive pressure, PPEs are not required by medics, freeing up scarce PPEs for other frontline workers.
The initiative has been receiving traction from the private sector. It is a prototype that can support the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) achieving its target of testing across the country.
Also on testing, a research and development company, 54gene, has taken an active role in promoting the expansion of coronavirus testing in Nigeria, raising about $15 million in a Series A round of funding in April 2020, in addition to $4.5 million earlier secured.
The company has repositioned itself and bounced on a huge opportunity gap in testing by providing private facilities for those travelling. “Speed was needed and we quickly raised a total of $500,000 to increase the testing capacity in public laboratories by at least 1,000 additional tests per day,” the company said on its website.
In education, the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted attitudes towards online learning significantly as people were forced to embrace technology such as language apps, virtual tutoring, video conferencing tools, or online learning software to manage lockdown.
Fresh investments in the sector show investors taking a position. Seven days ago, Nigerian edu-tech start-up uLesson, launched by Sim Shagaya, Konga founder, raised a $7.5 million Series A funding round as it prepares to expand across Africa.
“At uLesson, we know we have a critical role to play in this ‘new normal’ and this funding will be crucial in our drive to fill the major gaps in Africa’s education system through tech,” Shagaya said.
So far, uLesson has offered tailored content for Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Gambia within the K-12 (kindergarten to junior secondary) segment, and has scaled quickly to one million app downloads since its launch in March 2020, as the first wave of Covid-19 peaked.
In April last year, Nigerian ed-tech start-up Gradely, which applies artificial intelligence (AI) to improve learning outcomes in schools, raised a seed funding round from Microtraction to help it in its early growth phase.
“Our latest investment at @microtraction is launching when most African schools are looking to explore digital learning for the first time and provide a platform that helps parents and schools identify and close student learning gaps,” Yele Bademosi, founder, Microtraction, tweeted on April 1, 2020.
In November 2020, auto technology company, Autocheck, secured $3.4 million in a pre-seed funding round to support its growth.
The firm’s platform is a network consisting of consumers and businesses to buy, sell, service, and finance cars, which will play a huge role in reducing social distancing.
Etop Ikpe, founder/CEO of Autochek, said after the deal the firm would use the investment to grow its Nigerian and Ghanaian markets while further investing in technology and in its team.
Autocheck helps buyers to secure used vehicles and to find exactly the cars they are looking for.
In April 2020, Okra, a fintech firm, raised $1 million from TL.com Capital, a venture capitalist.
Okra said after the deal that it would continue to build a super-connector API that allowed individuals to connect their bank accounts directly to third-party applications.
In less than 15 days into 2021, Nigeria-based Daystar Power, which supplies solar energy to businesses in West Africa, announced it had raised $38 million in funding to expand its operations in Nigeria and four other African countries, while Starsight received a second $10 million financing injection from Scandinavian investment funds, Finnfund and Norfund, to supply solar energy to businesses in Nigeria and Ghana.
In addition to increasing installed power capacity to 100mw from its current 23mw, Daystar aims to aid Nigeria’s energy transition by replacing high-emission diesel with clean and reliable solar power, while Helios-backed solar power solutions firm, Starsight, plans to scale up its generation capacity and services in the Nigerian and Ghanaian markets.
COVID-19 has disrupted global supply chains and plunged economies into recession. The Nigerian economy fell by 3.6 percent in the third quarter of 2020, after slumping 6.1 percent earlier in the second quarter (Q2), according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
But this has not stopped Nigerian entrepreneurs from taking bold steps or attracting investments where they see potential opportunities.
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