By Adedapo Adesanya
As part of its pursuit towards improving Nigeria’s agriculture value chain, First City Monument Bank (FCMB) has announced the 2020 edition of the FCMB Agritech Epic Pitch, through which it plans to sustain funding for early to growth-stage entrepreneurs to grow and scale their Agritech businesses.
This year’s edition, the third of its type, will be implemented through Hub One (the bank’s tech hub located in Lagos, Nigeria) in partnership with Passion Incubator, a Lagos-based early-stage tech incubator and accelerator.
For this edition, FCMB will be providing grant funding of N1.5 million to two tech start-ups in the agriculture sector to support their business growth as well as access to free word-class workspace, steady market and a robust network that stimulates innovation, collaboration and business growth.
In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, the FCMB Agritech Epic Pitch 2020 is the first virtual edition of the initiative but is positioned to deliver the same value to participants, as demonstrated in previous editions.
Speaking on this, Mrs Rolayo Akhigbe, Divisional Head, Transaction Banking, FCMB said, “We are passionate about supporting Nigeria’s tech ecosystem and this initiative is one of the ways through which we are building and accelerating the growth of the Agritech Startups in Nigeria, as well as the larger African continent.”
Also commenting, Mr Kudzai Gumunyu, Divisional Head, Agric Business added, “This initiative plays an important role in helping young and driven Nigerian entrepreneurs grow their Agric-focused business.
“This mission would eventually build investible, sustainable and scalable AgriTech businesses that can contribute to the nation’s employment rate as well as the growth of the nation’s GDP”.
The application for the program is currently open and will run till July 24, 2020.
The bank called on entrepreneurs in the Agritech space to apply by visiting https://on.fcmb.com/AEP.
The program will also feature a virtual conference with the theme “Redefining and repositioning Agricultural value chains during and post the COVID-19 era”, which will bring together some global experts to discuss and share some insights on the Agricultural value chains.
