Growing the Nigerian Technology Ecosystem through the Capital Market

The future of countries, businesses, and individuals will be more dependent than ever on their adoption of technology. Economic vibrancy and wealth creation in developed countries have been associated with technological advancements and digital innovation & transformation.

Today, most of the companies with the world’s largest market capitalizations are tech companies that generate much of their revenue from the digital ecosystems they created. This is a significant change from the early 2000s to this current time.

Markets such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), NASDAQ, Euronext, Hong Kong Stock exchange (HKEX) etc have attracted IPOs and listings of tech giants through implementation of initiatives that support growth companies and cost efficiency for stakeholders in addition to global visibility and access to a larger pool of international capital offered by their platforms

In Africa, the tech-ecosystem has experienced impressive growth and is evolving rapidly. There is a high level of optimism about the potential that the continent has to offer by harnessing the strength of its largely young, rapidly growing and technology savvy population.

Nigeria is one of the continent's more established startup ecosystems, with firms like Interswitch dating as far back as 2002.

Albeit the growing tech-sector in the Nigerian economy and significant private funding secured by African tech start-ups over the years, the tech sector is grossly underrepresented in the Nigerian capital market.

Would African capital markets follow the same path to advancement through tech-ecosystem development?