Stakeholders in Nigeria’s technology and investment sectors have called for patient capital, blended financing and stronger commercial partnerships to help startups overcome funding constraints and transform innovative ideas into scalable businesses.
The stakeholders said inadequate access to appropriate financing, weak market linkages, infrastructure gaps and limited business development support continued to constrain growth stage ventures, despite increasing innovation across technology, agriculture, healthcare and climate related sectors.
They made the call at the Innovation Makers Challenge (IMC) 2.0 Conference and Exhibition, where Stakeholders call for blended financing, stronger infrastructure and commercial partnerships to bridge funding gaps and unlock growth stage enterprise.
The event, organised by the Telecommunications and Technology Sustainability Working Group (TTSWG), in collaboration with IPS and other partners, brought together technology companies, investors, policymakers and entrepreneurs to examine how Nigeria could move promising innovations from pilot stages into commercially viable enterprises.
Bankole Oloruntoba, the lead consultant/spokesperson for the TTSWG, said the initiative had made about N10 million in seed capital available for early and mid stage ideas, while expanding its focus beyond telecommunications and technology to include healthcare, agriculture and climate change.
Oloruntoba said collaboration across sectors was essential to building a sustainable innovation ecosystem, noting that technology alone could not deliver sustainable development.
He urged participants to use the conference to develop partnerships and financing relationships capable of supporting young businesses beyond the idea stage.
Opeyemi Oriniowo, a senior policy adviser on economic affairs and public diplomacy at the consulate-general of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Lagos, said Nigeria had no shortage of innovative entrepreneurs, but the challenge remained how to convert their ideas into enterprises capable of generating measurable economic impact.
Oriniowo said the Netherlands was supporting the Nigerian Circular Economy Impact Fund through technical assistance aimed at mobilizing resources for a $10 million fund for entrepreneurs.
He affirmed that access to appropriate financing, technology, knowledge and international partnerships would be critical to unlocking opportunities in renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, circular economy and climate-smart infrastructure.
The policy adviser said sustainability should be treated as an economic opportunity capable of generating new markets, business models and investment opportunities. ‘The opportunity right now is how Africa collaborates with the world, and how Nigeria collaborates with the world, in a win-win situation,’ he added.
Nissi Madu, managing partner, CcHub, said the financing gap facing Nigerian startups was partly an information and understanding gap between founders and investors, rather than simply a shortage of money, while disclosing that founders required support beyond funding, including talent, regulatory guidance, management capacity and access to relevant institutions and markets.
‘The funding gap is partly an insight and understanding gap, not simply a lack of money. We need local funders and patient capital to support founders at different stages,’ Madu said.
She added that investors needed to assess business fundamentals such as unit economics, customer acquisition costs, margins, working capital requirements and the ability of startups to expand beyond a single market or distribution partner.
Ireayomide Oladunjoye, managing director of Endeavour, said entrepreneurs needed to stabilise their operations, test their markets and establish appropriate business structures before attempting to scale.
Oladunjoye urged corporates to support startups through procurement and commercial opportunities, rather than relying solely on grants, saying such partnerships could provide market validation and sustainable revenue opportunities.
Anil Atmaramani, partner at Antler, said the challenge facing startups was not necessarily the absence of capital but the structure, timing and suitability of financing available to businesses at different stages of development. He said entrepreneurs needed to focus on differentiated solutions and product-market fit instead of relying on replicated business models.
Dapo Otunla, senior vice president and chief corporate services officer at IHS Nigeria, said infrastructure investments must translate into economic opportunities for businesses and individuals. He said IHS Nigeria had deployed towers, fibre networks and in-building solutions supporting more than 130 million mobile subscribers in Nigeria, but noted that connectivity alone could not guarantee economic impact.
‘Connectivity means little if it does not translate into opportunity,’ Otunla said, adding that education, knowledge and mentorship were important to building businesses capable of creating jobs and surviving beyond their founders.
Akinbulejo Onabolu, head of Enterprise Segments at MTN Nigeria, said telecommunications infrastructure had created opportunities for entrepreneurs through improved access to digital payments, customers, cloud services and business solutions.
Onabolu said MTN Business was seeking to work with innovators to develop and scale digital solutions across sectors, including retail and hospitality.
During a discussion on climate and sustainability financing, Titilope Oguntuga, director of sustainability at IHS Nigeria, said entrepreneurs needed to demonstrate the measurable economic value of sustainability investments to attract investors and corporate decision-makers.
Using IHS Nigeria’s transition towards renewable energy as an example, she said sustainability investments could deliver economic, social and environmental benefits while improving business performance.
She noted that the company’s efforts had contributed to a 21.4 percent reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions intensity.
For Nigeria’s innovation ecosystem, stakeholders said the priority was to bridge the gap between developing solutions and building sustainable businesses, with access to patient capital, reliable infrastructure and commercial markets emerging as critical requirements for growth.
The conference also featured discussions on sustainability metrics for telecommunications, with participants highlighting the importance of reliable energy, digital inclusion, data security and resilient infrastructure in supporting Nigeria’s digital economy.
Chris Nwaje, a technology leader who presented on sustainability metrics for telecommunications, called for a comprehensive framework to measure the effectiveness, efficiency and long-term resilience of digital infrastructure. Nwaje said energy use, affordability, data security and environmental sustainability were important considerations for attracting investment and sustaining growth.
Stakeholders therefore called for blended financing structures combining government support, guarantees, technical assistance, commercial capital, equity and debt to reduce investment risks and support emerging technologies.
They affirmed that the financing structure for each enterprise should reflect its specific needs and stage of development, noting that guarantees could help reduce commercial investors’ risk exposure while other partners supported logistics, distribution and infrastructure.
They said stronger collaboration among investors, corporates, government and entrepreneurs would be essential to turning promising innovations into enterprises capable of attracting investment, creating jobs and delivering measurable economic impact.