Lagos-based incubator and accelerator, CcHub, in partnership with Omidyar Network, Bank of Industry and Venture Garden Group will soon launch a NGN 1 billion ($5 million) social innovation fund.
According to a statement obtained by TechCabal, the fund will be invested into “next generation infrastructure for change in Nigeria”.
“With a targeted fund size of N1 billion over the next twenty-four months, the goal is to deepen support for early stage social enterprises solving local problems across various sectors of the Nigerian economy,” the statement reads.
This is Nigeria’s first Social Innovation Fund, according to CcHUB. But it’s not the first time CcHub is setting up a funding pool for startups. It first launched a $500,000 seed investment fund in 2014.
Although it never identified itself as an accelerator, it certainly re-positioned itself from only a nurturer of tech talents and founders, to a direct financial backer of the ecosystem. CcHub began investing up to $25,000 in startups in exchange for 7% equity.
At the same time, it launched a business development and mentoring support for startups who recorded sustainable success from its pre-incubation programme (its pre-seed funding for startups out of the $90,000 support fund from Tony Elemelu).
The $500,000 funding pool was designed to be invested in startups over a period of two years. Since August 2014, CcHub is already a year and some change into that tw0-year period and it seems the Social Innovation Fund will pick up right where the first investment fund ends. It’s unclear if the investment strategy (how much equity CcHub will take and the typical size of investment) will follow the existing convention.
An invite – only cocktail to launch the fund will hold on December 15 at Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island Lagos.
Conversation will focus on the goal of the fund, profile of the backers, impact and infrastructure startups in the county and aspirations of backers – ON, BoI and VGG.
