MEST Incubator Lagos holds talks

• Focus on investing in tech startups

MEST yesterday hosted its first event in Lagos, featuring an interactive session and fireside chat with a focus on investing in tech startups.Speakers were Alexandra (Lexi) Novitske from Singularity Investments; Dan Marom, Irrational Innovations; Ngozi Dozie, Kaizen Ventures; Folabi Esan, Adlevo Capital; Segun Adeyemi, Amplify; and Jason Njoku from Spark & Irokotv.

The evening talks was moderated by MEST Lagos Incubator General Manager, Neku Atawodi, one of Forbes Africa’s 30 under 30 for 2016, and founder of Malaik, an impact-focused approach to equity crowd funding in Africa.

Founded in 2008, the MEST programme has invested $20 million to support aspiring African entrepreneurs through the Meltwater Foundation. Over 400 individual entrepreneurs (from 4 countries: Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa) have graduated from the training programme, and more than 25 tech companies have been launched with seed funding and mentorship from MEST.

MEST entrepreneurs have developed solutions addressing local and global markets, received follow-on funding from global investors, and have gained admittance to top accelerator programmes such as Y-Combinator, 500 Startups and TechStars.

MEST itself is regarded as “one of the largest private investments in Ghanaian economic development” by DFID and has received recognition from Forbes, Aljazeera, CNN, TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, BBC and MarketWatch. MEST was also recently recognised as Fast Company’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Africa.