[Nigeria Business Week] Industries' growth encourage investments

At first glance, one cannot help but notice that Nigeria is prime ground for investment. Any doubts as to that fact are dissolved when you examine the sheer number of startups being funded, especially in the ICT sector. In the past week alone, mobile savings app Piggybank.ng has received seed funding of £1.1M from local and international investors, picture searching app Touchbal got a $20,000 pre-seed funding from GenesysTechHub. Turner Wright, a company involved in animal health and nutrition received $150 million financing from Milost Global. Incidentally, Turner Wright is about to be acquired by diversified holding corporation, Williamsville Sears Management.

A remarkable development in ICT was Union Bank launching robotics technology in its operations.

New in the telecom sector is that MTN, possibly in a bid to swim out of the sea of debt it that has plagued it in recent times, is in the process of initiating an IPO in Nigeria. As of now the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Nigeria Stock Exchange have received no offers.

Nigeria’s oil and gas regulatory corporation, NNPC (Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation) is still pulling in all measures to improve the power situation in the country. It’s latest effort is partnering with Agip Oil to add 500 mega watts of power to Nigeria’s power grid. Also pertinent to NNPC is making sure that petroleum products are in healthy supply in every corner of the country, hence the new target to control 30% of the market share by 2020.

The hospitality sector is not left begging. BON hotels has recently acquired 11 new hotels across the country, making it Nigeria’s fastest growing hotel group.