Over N50m grants disbursed to tech-driven start-ups – OIIE

Office for ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIIE), a subsidiary of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), says it gave over N50 million grants to tech-driven start-ups in Nigeria in 2015.

Bunmi Okunowo, national coordinator of OIIE, said this at the launch of the maiden edition of StartUP Friday at the OIIE office recently.

Okunowo explained that OIIE, in its first of many rounds of disbursements, gave the grants to incubators and accelerators that had proven records of nurturing and producing start-ups with growth potential, saying the OIIE was currently expecting the approval of its 2016 budget before it implements 2016 disbursement.

“One of the major challenges facing start-ups is the seed funding. That early stage funding that helps the start-ups to get the idea off ground to prototype, to working product and commercialisation stage. Seed funding is very scarce in our society, despite the increased rates of ICT products and services springing up every now and then.

“What we are doing is to assist thriving incubators and accelerators with grants in bankrolling the cost of incubating or accelerating promising tech-driven start-ups to successful businesses,” he said.

Afolabi Imoukhuede, senior special adviser to the President on Job Creation and Youth Employment under the Office of the Vice President, reiterated the focus of the government in catalysing the creation of jobs in some sectors, which includes ICT, especially tech innovation clusters across the country.