Five Nigerian Start-ups Awarded €120,000 as Part of OCIF

Start-up entrepreneurs; Oluwatomisin Kolawole, Founder of Vinsighte, Ifeoluwa Adewumi, Founder, of Hillspring diagnostics, Chidumaga Unachukwu, Founder of Exergie, Olaseni Cole, Founder of Young Empowered Programmers (YEP) and Deborah Akpedeye, Co-Founder of Webtodi have emerged first to fifth place winners at the Orange Corners Innovation Pitch Competition.

The Entrepreneurs have access to a €120,000 start-up capital of 75% grant and 25% loan provided by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency.

Orange Corners is an initiative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands launched in Nigeria in 2019 and implemented by FATE Foundation.

The Orange Corners Incubation Programme supports 20 entrepreneurs every 6 months with enterprise development knowledge, mentoring, access to the market and funding to grow their business. To date, the Orange Corners Nigeria through the Orange Corners Innovation Fund has supported 120 Entrepreneurs with grant funding valued over N257 million for prototype development and testing.

Winners of the business pitch competition from each cohort have also been supported with seed funding of over N193, 000,000 (One Hundred and Ninety Three million naira) to grow their businesses.

Speaking at the awards,Director, Corporate Affairs and Sustainable Business, Unilever, West Africa and the Chairman of the UN Global Compact Local Network in Nigeria, Soromidayo George shared her delight with the business ideas put forward.

She stressed the value of developing entrepreneurial skills and emphasized the fact that though a large number of people are employable, the reality is that there are few jobs available and competition is fierce for those that are available.

George congratulated the winners and urged the entrepreneurs to maintain their passion and continue offering answers to societal and economic problems.