The Federal Ministry of Youth Development (FMYD), through the Nigerian Youth Academy (NiYA), has partnered with Cascador to launch a new programme aimed at helping young Nigerian entrepreneurs move from business ideas to investment-ready ventures.
The partnership, announced to mark International Youth Day 2026, will see the NiYA × Cascador Founders Program provide training, mentorship and non-dilutive funding to a pilot cohort of 20 early-stage Nigerian youth founders.
Under the programme, participants will undergo an intensive four-week curriculum covering business fundamentals, investment readiness and pitch preparation.
At the end of the programme, eight of the top-performing founders will receive up to N5 million each in non-dilutive funding from Cascador.
The selected founders will also receive an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution to help them structure and manage their businesses as they scale.
The programme will culminate in a Pitch Day organised by NiYA and FMYD, where participants will present their businesses to a panel of judges.
According to the organisers, the pilot is designed to support young founders who may not have formal business registration, established financial records or access to traditional funding networks.
‘For NiYA, training is only one part of the journey. The real value is in helping young people move from learning to enterprise, from ideas to investable businesses, and from potential to sustainable economic participation,’ the minister for youth development said.
The minister added that the partnership with Cascador would combine business preparation with access to capital, particularly for young entrepreneurs who lack the formal structures and financial history typically required by traditional funders.
The programme forms part of NiYA’s broader ambition to train and empower seven million Nigerian youths within two years.
Cascador, a Nigeria-focused platform supporting growth-stage founders, will work with FMYD and NiYA to establish eligibility criteria, support participants’ investment readiness, assess their pitches and provide funding to the strongest performers.
Trish Thomas, CEO of Cascador, said the partnership would help create a practical pathway between entrepreneurship training and access to capital.
‘NiYA and FMYD have already shown what real commitment to Nigeria’s youth looks like the platforms, the reach, the ambition to train millions,’ Thomas said.
She added that the partnership would provide a bridge from the ideation stage to capital readiness.
Oyin Solebo, COO of Cascador and former managing director of the ARM Labs Lagos Techstars Accelerator, said the programme demonstrated how government-backed entrepreneurship training could be combined with private-sector capital.
‘This is what innovative capital deployment looks like as a government building real investment readiness at scale, and a partner meeting that foundational work with non-dilutive funding at exactly the moment it’s needed,’ Solebo said.
The pilot will be delivered in person in Abuja, supported by virtual sessions and one-on-one mentorship.
The organisers said all 20 participants who complete the programme will retain NiYA alumni status and receive priority consideration for future opportunities.
For FMYD, the pilot is also intended to test a model that could eventually be expanded beyond the initial cohort.
The minister said the broader objective is to create a youth entrepreneurship ecosystem where access to opportunities is determined by business readiness, ideas and execution rather than an entrepreneur’s background or existing networks.
The partnership comes as Nigeria continues to grapple with youth unemployment and the need to create pathways for young people to participate more meaningfully in the digital and wider economy.
By combining public-sector reach, entrepreneurship training and private capital, the NiYA-Cascador initiative seeks to address one of the persistent challenges facing young Nigerian founders which is moving from acquiring skills to building businesses capable of attracting and effectively deploying capital.