Early and growth stage startups have until Friday, August 14 to apply for the iDEA Nigeria incubator programme, which offers resources, training, mentoring, professional services and networking opportunities to help small businesses scale.
Information Technology Developers Entrepreneurship Accelerator (iDEA) was launched in April 2013 in order to assist Nigerian entrepreneurs and accelerate the development of the tech industry in Nigeria.
The incubator has made its latest call for applications, following a demo day in June and a previous call in April, with interviews and pitches to take place next week and selected startups beginning the programme on August 26.
“Selected startups will spend up to a year of incubation to become competitive high growth companies. We are looking for entrepreneurs with innovative solutions in finance, enterprise (especially for SMEs), e-commerce, m-commerce and healthcare,” iDEA said.
Interested parties can apply here.
Disrupt Africa reported last month Olufunbi Falayi, co-founder of the Lagos-based Passion Incubator, has moved to the government-funded iDEA Nigeria, taking six startups with him.
Falayi helped to launch Passion Incubator last year, but has now moved across to iDEA Nigeria, where he will lead all its activities and interventions with early-stage startups, as well as engagement with the ecosystem.
Waracake, Talking Bookz, Beat Traffik, Medrep, Easy Space and Stylista have followed Falayi to iDEA, with Passion Incubator no longer accepting any new startups for the time being.
Oluseye Bassir, chief operating officer (COO) of iDEA, previously told Disrupt Africa hub sustainability is “inextricably linked” to the impact of a particular hub or incubator.
“That impact could be commercial, where we find the best teams with the most scalable offerings, and we actually help them along, such that a number of our startups in which we take equity then become winners,” he said.
“Impact could also be social or socio-economic. Some of the impact we’re looking to make in that direction, is to contribute to the growth of a technological cluster that attracts and develops very highly skilled people, building viable companies that collaborate and compete within our space.”