About 17 early-stage green businesses in Nigeria have been offered the opportunity to get $10,000 grant with which they can move their business ideas to scale, a statement from Clean Tech Incubation and Acceleration Foundation (CTIAF) has disclosed.
Out of the 17, OGN however understands that seven of the best performing business ideas would be offered the $10,000 grant each after satisfactorily participating in a six-month incubation program undertaken by CTIAF in partnership with All On, a Shell-seeded impact investing company.
The official statement which announced this, explained that it is the 2021 edition of CTIAF’s annual ideation incubation program for budding renewable energy entrepreneurs.
CTIAF also said that the program is an enterprise development initiative where early-stage Nigerian companies with innovative green business ideas are given access to business development and mentorship support including funding.
“Following a pitch challenge on July 8th, 2021, that saw 25 of 175 applicants, present their innovative ideas to a diverse panel of judges, 17 finalists were selected into the program,” the statement stated.
It added that, “Each entrepreneur was evaluated against the following criteria: market potential, social impact, innovation potential, climate impact, strength of management team and quality of the pitch.”
According to it, Dr. Ivie Ehanmo, a renowned multi-jurisdictional expert in the energy sector, Aishat Alimi, an investment associate at All On, and Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata who is a co-founder of GoDo Hub were part of the judging panel for the selection.
Other members of the panel were Ifedy Ralph Eze who is a business strategist and Managing Director at Founders Institute Lagos and Glory Oguegbu, development entrepreneur and founder of Renewable Energy Technology Training Institute (RETTI).
On the list of the 17 selected for the 2021 cohort were Brigter, OGV Solar Drying Center, Solconomy, Rural Lights Up Energy, Kodak Tech, Brycoal, Ina Lite, Sango Technology, and Renerworld Global.
The other selected businesses were Switch Solar, Innovation City Ventures, Bleu Intelligence Automation, Iergy, REKademy, Moon Innovations, Cellone and Sustainable Energy Solutions.
On the potentials of the program, Sele Inegbedion, Manager, All On Hub said that it will “incubate energy entrepreneurs with innovative solutions for underserved communities, to enable them move from ideation to development and ultimately implementation at scale.”
“We are pleased with our continued partnership with CTIAF with the common goal of improving energy access,” Inegbedion added.
Similarly, Chisom Udemezue, who is the Enterprise Development Manager for Clean Tech Hub stated that “Clean Tech Hub has continued to position itself as the leading incubator for early-stage renewable energy startups.”
Udemezue indicated that, “Through this program, supported by All On, the foremost energy impact investor, we remain committed to supporting these entrepreneurs to achieve their next scale growth and use their innovative solutions to increase energy access across rural and last mile communities.”
Clean Tech Incubation and Acceleration Foundation is a pioneering hybrid hub for the research, development, demonstration and incubation of clean and green ideas and technologies in Africa, while All On, an impact investing company, was seeded with funding from Shell, and works with partners to increase access to commercial energy products and services for unserved and underserved off-grid energy markets in Nigeria.
