Y Combinator CEO, others attend first edition of event in Lagos

StartUp Friday, the monthly event held by the Office for ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIIE) for startups, held in Lagos for the first time on Friday, September 23, 2016.

The event, which has been held in Abuja for the past editions, was staged at the Landmark event center in Victoria Island, Lagos.

For this particular episode of StartUp Fridays, the big deal was that Michael Siebel, CEO of Y Combinator, the most successful incubator in the world, was going to be present in addition to being part of a panel.

The National Coordinator of the OIIE, Bunmi Okunnnowo, gave the opening speech at the Lagos edition of StartUp Friday, before bringing on the acting DG of of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Vincent Olatunjifor the opening speech.

The event went into full swing with the first panel made up of Michael Siebel, Yele Okeremi, CEO of Precise Financial Partners (PFS); Yemi Candide-Johnson, a Senior Partner atStrachan Partners; John Obaro, CEO of SystemSpecs; and acting NITDA DG, Vincent Olatunji.

The panel spoke on a host of things ranging from intellectual property, to the role of government in aiding tech entrepreneurship and how to raise funding from foreign investors such as Y Combinator (YC). This panel was moderated by Bunmi Okunnowo, OIIE national coordinator.

Next came the FutureHack pitches, which provided a platform for undergraduates to pitch their ideas to investors and the audience. Some of the companies that pitched include: Laura, an automated customer service rep; and Biomass, a startup that hopes to create fuel using disposable waste.

After the FutureHack pitches came the seed stage pitches from startups that include: Thrifty, a tech-based financial savings platform that called out PiggyBank.ng; 54Artistry, a platform that connects creatives with job opportunities; Stutern, a platform that links undergraduates and graduates with Internship opportunities; Beace, a marketplace for makeup artists and beauticians; LifeBank, a startup that provides blood on demand;Loystar, and Suvenia, a gift and souvenir platform.

Another group of panelists where then called on stage to give their thoughts on the FutureHack and seed stage pitches. "I'm partial to substance over form," said Tunji Lardner, founder ofWangonet and one of the panelists, on the seed stage pitches.

The growth stage pitches soon followed immediately after with pitches from companies which include: Vapo, a centralized travel processing office; NairaBox, a fintech startup that allows its users to pay for anything from their phone; and NerveFlo, a unified digital media distribution platform for emerging markets.

Yet another set of panelists were brought on stage to give feedback on the growth stage pitches with Osayi Ighodaro, Managing Partner at Ripple VC, commenting, 'You shouldn't waste time on your slides and your pitch slides should be simple and straight to the point.'

For his part, Chika Nwobi, founder of L5Labs, said, "If you're a multi-sided platform, focus on owning a niche vertical."

Finally, the last panel of the day was  called upon. Panelists included Ngozi Dozie, co-founder, Kaizen Venture partners;Niyi Yusuf, MD of Accenture; Bunmi Abayomi-Olukunle, Partner at Balogun Harold; and Ore Sofekun, CEO of Investment One.

The event rounded up with a networking session that included panel members, pitchers, investors and the audience. Stay withPulse Tech to keep you updated on the next edition of StartUp Friday.