Following the recent launch of its US$255,000 innovation prize to be awarded as a combination of cash and equity investment in the underlying businesses of the winners, the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) is set to open its application portal to the public.
Application for the Innovation Prize programme which is structured as a business enhancement initiative to support early-stage, scalable solutions through education, mentorship, and financing, will open in March 2023 while the programme will run and close within Q2 of 2023.
In December 2022, the NSIA, managers of the Nigeria sovereign wealth fund, launched the NSIA Prize for Innovation (“NPI” or “the Prize”), a capacity-building initiative which aims to bolster innovation within Nigeria’s digital ecosystem. The Authority is now set to open the application portal for the competition to innovators, technopreneurs, and startups.
NPI is a multi-year commitment by the NSIA to empower early-stage Nigerian innovators. The Programme is designed to encourage and support ingenuity within the digital ecosystem and to fund early-stage tech-enabled solutions that could result in cost-effective, scalable, and transformative economic impact.