The Oxford Foundry and FMDQ Private Markets Limited, Africa’s first vertically integrated financial market infrastructure group, have launched a global partnership to accelerate the growth of Nigeria’s start-up ecosystem and nurture a future generation of young Nigerian leaders in entrepreneurship, through knowledge exchange and collaboration. The partnership will support Nigeria’s future business leaders and high-growth start-ups to access the networks and skills they need to grow and sustain their businesses, create jobs and inclusive socio-economic growth, and facilitate the growth of Nigeria’s venture ecosystem.

Nigeria has one of the largest numbers of technology start-ups in Africa and has seen huge successes with companies such as Flutterwave – valued at US$1 billion – and Nigerian-led Paystack, now bought by payments giant, Stripe, for $200 million. Nigeria has been identified as one of the eleven ‘3G’ countries by Citigroup – countries of large growth potential and profitable investment opportunities.

There are an increasing number of programmes to support Nigerian start-ups, with corresponding high demand, implying that there is huge potential and opportunity to create new partnerships to support high-growth potential businesses, and an increased need to access capital. Currently, over 80% of venture funding comes from an entrepreneur’s personal or family savings.

Through this partnership between the Oxford Foundry and FMDQ Private Markets Limited, bespoke programmes have been co-created, leveraging the University of Oxford’s global, multidisciplinary networks and Nigeria’s entrepreneurship ecosystem, to support Nigeria’s future business leaders and high-growth start-ups to access the networks, skills, and investment pathways they need to grow their businesses.