Yesterday August 1st saw ZoneTechPark open their doors to welcome the media and tech enthusiasts for their media unveiling and press conference held at their beautiful park space in Gbagada, Lagos.
The media launch which officially signaled the start of full operations at the Park was well attended with more than a handful of Tech Journos, and an audience of industry experts from the Tech, business and venture capital sectors in attendance.
In his brief remarks, Toro Orero, Chief Executive of the Park, described Zone Tech Park as a venture builder for African Tech Startups and will tap into the entrepreneurial grit available in the technology landscape across Africa. “Our mission is for Africa, but we will begin from home; here in Nigeria by enabling and supporting high impact startups through enterprise support and direct investments. We will build great products ideas into great startups and create the environment, capital and corporate partnerships to help these startups scale up and become great companies’’.
Founded by serial entrepreneur and CEO Workforce Group, Bolaji Olagunju, the park joins a list of innovation hubs and parks supporting and scaling up the quality of tech products plus the viability and sustainability of the companies they eventually grow to become. For Bolaji; its more than just creating ideas and launching startups. It’s a whole lot more. “Today, African Startups are faced with significant challenges which has hindered their growth and impact. This is not only limited to capital but access to the right corporate network, venture support, business models and strategic enterprise support. Zone Tech Park will change the status quo and help startups realize their full potentials. With 6.5 Million USD invested till date, we have both world class infrastructure and environment to help African startups scale and compete globally.”
Also Read: First Hardware Innovation Hub, AlphaHUB Launched In Nigeria
The Tech Hub is now open to startups at different stages and will offer investments from seed to direct funding for equity. It also announced that the co-working space is free for startups whose ideas have been validated by their Venture development team. Asides this, Zone Tech Park has five meeting rooms that can take up to 100 people, a studio booth, a cafeteria, a 650-seat event and conference hall which is open to ecosystem events, tech trainings, meetups etc all for free upon approval.
Zone Tech Park is backed by the Workforce Group and will within the next 12 months support over a dozen startups across Nigeria. It will also support her startups in preparing for funding rounds relying on their rich network of over 400 corporations, potential investors, accelerator programs and ecosystem growth merchants.
Prior to this launch, the Hub ran different pilot programmes and has built 3 user ready products – Outwork, a staff on-demand solution with 7,000 users; Peerless, a learning management system for corporates with over 7,000+ users. The select group of thought leaders, business leaders, industry experts and the media present at the launch got a feel of the products, held one-on-one interactions and were also treated to a tour of the facility to experience the ambience and beautiful environment of the Tech Park.
