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What if your startup idea didn’t just stay in your notes app? What if it actually got funded? That’s exactly what the Nigerian government is trying to make happen with a new program that could quietly change how startups are built across the country.
The story starts with a ₦23 million mistake. In 2017, Nigerian entrepreneur Ndifreke Ikpoku thought he had secured a valuable piece of land on the outskirts of Port Harcourt. The documents looked legitimate. The deal seemed solid.
For the longest time, if you said “venture capital in Africa", one word would immediately follow: fintech. Payments. Lending. Digital banks. Mobile money. That’s where most of the money has gone, and honestly, for good reason.
In 2016, Selar wasn’t a startup with a grand master plan to dominate Africa’s creator economy. It was just an idea. No pitch deck. No market thesis. No “this is how we’ll win” roadmap. Just one simple belief from founder Douglas Kendyson: People don’t just want to consume content sometimes; they want to support the people who create it.
A new report by the African Development Bank is now placing Africa at the centre of the global AI growth conversation, not as a consumer of technology, but as a future builder of it. And the numbers? They’re massive. According to the Bank’s latest study developed under the G20 Digital Transformation Working Group, Africa could unlock up to $1 trillion in additional GDP by 2035 through inclusive AI adoption.
In a moment that felt bigger than fintech, Nigerian payments powerhouse Flutterwave lit up the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and the reaction back home was electric. For many Nigerians watching online, seeing their own company’s name on the trading floor screens wasn’t just news… it was proof that Africa’s tech dreams can play on the world’s biggest financial stages.
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