Overview
Ibadan is a prominent southwestern city in Nigeria, and the capital city of Oyo State. The city has experienced a rise in entrepreneurship in recent years. This means that Ibadan’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is still emerging and boasts enormous potential that has yet to be harnessed. The city also faces several challenges that hinder the ecosystem’s growth. These include: lack of access to finance, talent migration (also referred to as brain drain) due to perceived lack of opportunities, a lack of centralized data on ecosystem stakeholders, poor business infrastructure, and lack of immediate access to markets.
Nonetheless, Ibadan’s proximity to the city of Lagos presents a key opportunity to strengthen Ibadan’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Lagos is home to Nigeria’s largest urban population, which offers a large market for goods and services for entrepreneurs in Ibadan to tap into, and increases access to nearby investors.
The Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) conducted this entrepreneurial ecosystem snapshot to identify organizations that actively support entrepreneurs in Ibadan and the kind of support they provide. These organizations include: investors, capacity development providers, business development support providers, professional service providers, government agencies, and others.
The snapshot reveals that most support providers are either sector agnostic or focus on food and agriculture. Debt financing is the most prevalent financial tool in Ibadan’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Entrepreneurs usually access this type of financing in the form of a loan through banks or other financial institution. Support providers indicated that their top impact objective is building entrepreneurs’ capacity, which is often done by providing nonfinancial services directly to entrepreneurs.