Despite heading a government-funded commission, Mark Okoye II, the CEO of the Southeast Development Commission (SEDC), is banking on private capital and startups to unlock the Southeast region and help it reach its target of a $200 billion Economy by 2035.
In a recent feature by Techpoint Africa, the SEDC boss shared insights into building and sustaining a regional economy. According to him, public funding alone will not cut it, and Private capital has to flow to incentivise innovation and support startups.
Speaking to Techpoint Africa, Mark Okoye insisted that the challenge with the southeast region is not talent but rather access to capital.
“You go into conversations with a lot of venture capital firms, and there’s the view that there isn’t enough innovation or spotlight coming from all these other markets,” Okoye says.
The SEDC boss insists that there is talent in the region and that promising startups there have so far struggled to secure early-stage funding, thereby remaining invisible or packing up after a few months.
The Commission under Mark Okoye is putting its thesis to the test. It is floating a $50 million Southeast Venture Capital Fund for tech startups in the region. The venture program will be supervised by a select team of experts serving as an advisory committee.
Okoye revealed that the venture capital program is structured to achieve two major goals in the Southeast Ecosystem. To introduce early-stage funding to startups in the region. Then, to introduce them to the global standards and disciplines of venture capital firms. Global standards often demand scalability indices, governance structures, and astute reporting.
The Southeast Venture Capital Program is primarily for startups in eastern Nigeria. Exceptional startups from other parts of the country may be considered.
The SEDC is under pressure to deliver material tangibles for the region months after its launch. A Stakeholders Forum on sustainable goals to be implemented before 2050 was discussed, sparking ripples of criticism from concerned citizens.
Critics complained the commission could be another talk shop set up to distract and placate the eastern region. This follows complaints of marginalisation from the centre since the end of the civil war.
The $50 million Southeast Venture Capital is the first tangible deliverable from the SEDC. The commission stated it received over 1,000 Applications for the program within the first four days.
