Vatebra Tech Hub, powered by the Bank of Industry launched its first Incubation Program on the 24th of February 2019.
The welcome address / opening remarks was handled by the Deputy Managing Director of Vatebra Limited, Mike Aigbe. He said that over 100 entrepreneurs have benefited from the Vatebra Tech Hub since its launch about six months ago. According to him, 164 startups applied to join the incubation programme, after which 15 startups were shortlisted and invited for an interview. After the interview stage, 3 startups were selected for our inaugural 6-month mentorship-driven incubation program.
Seun Tubi, who was present as a representative of the Managing Director, Bank of Industry (BOI) said mentorship is very critical in any business to succeed. He urged startups to take the program very seriously, saying at the end of the program, BOI is ready to assist in raising capital.
Chinyelu Chikwendu, who is the Director, Vatebra Tech Hub and Head Of Strategy at Vatebra Limited talked about how the Incubation program will be run. She added that some of the criteria looked at during the selection process were startups that are solving a major chronic problem, leveraging technology with the potential to scale after they have been incubated. She also stated that the essence of the program was to provide startups with needed mentorship and give them access to finance by inviting potential investors and the Bank of Industry (BOI) to support.
According to her, after the six months of incubation which would include mentoring for the startups, we hope to have a startup demo day, providing an opportunity for the startups to pitch their products in front of partners, investors, and others willing to invest or provide funding so they have an idea of what the startups can offer. She also said that we will also continue to mentor the startups and see that things are going on as they planned.
The event followed with a panel session on How to Build Startups That Can Scale. Members of the panel included Segun Adeyemi, the Country Manager (Nigeria) for JUMO, Uwem Uwemakpan, Funds Operations Manager at Ingressive Capital and Kolapo Ogungbile, Business Manager at Vatebra Tech Hub as the moderator. Uwem Uwemakpan said startups should use the right influencers or amplifiers for their products on social media.
Wellvis is an online platform that provides access to verified health information and health professionals in real-time. They have built an integrated platform-agnostic solution to close the gap in access to reliable and timely health information and support for African populations. Users can use the Wellvis platform to ask any health and wellness related questions (anonymously, if they choose) to get specific and reliable answers from verified health workers. They can also speak directly with qualified practitioners (ranging from doctors to dentists and physiotherapists) for consultations, second opinion or general health and wellness advice over a secured and private chat.
Guava is a Point of Sales Platform that enables companies, merchants, pharmacy stores and hospitals offer flexible credit to their customers without the use of physical cash or traditional Point- of- sale hardware. They allow customers to pay overtime thereby increasing merchant/partner revenue and also increasing the purchasing power of customers creating a win- win situation for customers and merchant.
Proximate Agro Solution is an innovative platform that solves the problems of accessibility of farmers to finance, market and extension services, to increase food production, creating ready-made jobs for agro-allied graduates and support training for youth and SMEs in agricultural value chain.
As part of the program benefit, the three startups will enjoy access to:
- Shared Office Space and the Internet for teams
- Hand on Business advisory support
- Access to funding from the Bank of Industry
- $10,000 in AWS Credit
- AWS Business Support (up to $5,000).
- Office Hour with Mentors
- International Market Access
- Access to a wide network of Investors
The closing remarks were done by the Community Manager, Vatebra Tech Hub, Ugwu Jennifer. She thanked everyone for accepting the invitations and being present to support the launch of the Vatebra Tech Hub Incubation Program.