Y Combinator (YC), a startup accelerator based in California (U.S.), will be visiting Lagos from 23-28 September 2016 on a tour of the Nigerian technology ecosystem. With investments in high profile startups like Airbnb, Dropbox and Stripe, Y Combinator is known as the world’s most powerful start-up incubator. YC attracts talented entrepreneurs from all over the world, and has recently invested in African startups like Paystack, OMG Digital and Flutterwave, to mention a few.
This tour is in line with YC’s Office Hours in 11 Countries, where partners will meet with technology entrepreneurs from across the globe with the intention to find and fund the next big technology startup. The Lagos leg is curated and hosted by Ingressive, an investment group that connects Africa’s top founders with Silicon Valley capital and expertise, and will kick off with a speaking event on September 23, 2016 at the Startup Friday.
This event is scheduled to be held at Landmark Event Center and is expected to have over 70 investors and 950 startup founders in attendance. This will be followed by an investors’ dinner for West African angels, a visit to Cranium One, a press conference for startup media, a CcHub luncheon, and a She Leads Africa accelerator brunch.
Representing YC on this tour are the CEO, Michael Seibel (co-founder of Justin.tv/Twitch.tv and SocialCam) and a Partner, Qasar Younis (founder of Talkbin, which was acquired by Google). Seibel and Younis will also be present at TechCircle’s event to share expert knowledge and experience on Building a Startup. This second event will take place on Saturday, September 24, 2016 at the Lagos Business School, Lekki.
“We want to fund the best startups from around the world,” said Qasar Younis, Partner at Y Combinator. “We’ve met some very talented founders from Africa, and we can’t wait to meet more founders in Lagos to see how we can help this startup community.”
“In the past couple of years we’ve seen a strong increase in Y Combinator applications from Nigeria and we’ve funded a number of great teams and products,” said Michael Seibel, Partner at Y Combinator. “One great example is Paystack, founded by Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi, who are building a developer friendly payments API for Africa.”
Speaking on the potential of the African market as a promising space for foreign investment, Maya Horgan-Famodu, founder at ingressive says, “The recent successes of African technology companies including iROKO and Interswitch have encouraged foreign investors to get active on the continent. This upcoming visit from YC partners—as well as the recent visit of Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg—further validates the position of Nigeria as one of the key players in the African technology ecosystem.”
For more information, contact Ingressive by email jenny (at) ingressive (dot) co or visit them online at www.ingressive.co.