The Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy in Nigeria has announced plans to collaborate with the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) to promote startup listings on the newly established NGX Technology Board.
The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, shared this information during a tech event called “Invest in Africa’s Future- Let’s talk about exits,” which took place in New York on September 21, 2023. The event was a joint initiative by the Ministry, NGX, and Future Africa, with support from Stanbic IBTC, CardinalStone Partners, and Chapel Hill Denham.
Tijani highlighted the need for Nigeria to diversify its economy away from its heavy reliance on the oil industry, and emphasised the importance of technology and innovation in achieving this goal. The current leadership under President Bola Tinubu is said to be particularly focused on driving technological advancements in the country.
Listing his goals and ambitions, Tijani said the Ministry will work on creating a regulatory environment for fintechs, access to funding especially from angel investors, improve digital infrastructure, facilitate the export of tech products and services and collaborate with NGX on tailored listing options for startups via its Technology Board.
The Minister said, “We cannot do all of this as a country if we do not prioritise innovation and encourage entrepreneurs to build. Nigeria is now open to investments. We want to prioritise the ability of our technology companies to export products and we are targeting Africa first and then eventually start selling to the rest of the world.”
At the same event, the Chief Executive Officer, NGX, Temi Popoola, stated that the Exchange will work assiduously to support the agenda of the Honourable Minister and the mandate of President Bola Tinubu. Whilst stating that technology is a big enabler of the capital market, Popoola said that NGX is keen on fostering innovation in the capital market, potentially to attract a larger pool of investors and mature tech companies to list on its platform.
Explaining the challenges around listings, he stated that the demand for private capital currently outweighs public capital while revealing that the NGX is in discussions with Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on private markets to enable the exchange do business with non-listed companies like startups.
“We will continue to do a lot of work that makes us able to attract local capital and the day tech start-ups come to the exchange, we are confident that there would be very good audience of investors that would want to own a bit of their shares. This is what we at NGX are doing by removing all barriers for that to happen,” the CEO said.
Also speaking at the event was the CEO, Flutterwave, Olugbenga Agboola who noted that his company is focused on the Nigeria project as most of its investible capital had been deployed to Nigeria since inception. He added that the company would be looking at tapping opportunities created by the markets to scale and further deliver value to its customers and investors.
The CEO, Chapel Hill Denham, Mr Bolaji Balogun while delivering his remarks expressed optimism that the Nigerian investment community gets the opportunity to participate in the capital formation going on in the tech sector, rather than all the intellectual property that will emanate from it being controlled by foreign markets.