V8 Africa, Nigeria’s newest co-working space, opened in Lagos on Wednesday, 16 November 2016. The new collaborative hub gives Nigerian startups and small businesses a platform to launch their entrepreneurial dreams and grow into thriving ventures, by providing them with an environment conducive enough for them to expand.
The co-working space is an initiative of two widely experienced men: Tobi Oke, former head of Intel Capital, and Ugo Okoye, CEO of iConcepts. Between them, they have garnered over 30 years of experience, and are now bringing the expertise and insight they have derived from their forays into the entrepreneurial space to bear in the setting up of the co-working space.
Oke said that V8 Africa was coming on the scene to help new ventures- especially tech startups -get past the hurdles typically faced by businesses in Nigeria in their early days. He assured that V8 was “passionate about helping businesses overcome these obstacles by offering efficient and affordable infrastructure as a service”.
He pointed out the growing appeal of co-working spaces to budding enterprises in what is becoming an increasingly technology-driven world and noted that V8’s platform offered all that modern startups would need to thrive in such an environment. The facilities at V8’s co-working space include meeting and training rooms, high-grade Wi-Fi and internet services, uninterrupted power supply, private offices, a dedicated front desk, and breakout spaces to receive guests. According to Oke, the hub isn’t competing with already existing co-working spaces but is intent on being a part of an ecosystem that encouraged innovation and entrepreneurship in the country.
V8 Africa will begin an accelerator program for technology companies in the first quarter of 2017. It wants to use the program as a vehicle to seek out and invest in promising tech startups which could go on to become major solutions providers in Nigeria’s modernizing economic space.