Why Nigeria’s startup ecosystem needs more corporate buyers

With startup funding slowing globally and foreign investors becoming more cautious, industry leaders are calling for a fundamental shift in how innovation is financed, scaled, and absorbed in Africa. The message, repeated across panels, keynote speeches, and informal conversations at the MTN Cloud Accelerator Demo Day in Lagos on November 28, 2025, was that Nigeria needs more corporate buyers like commercial banks, mobile network operators (MNOs), etc., fewer silos, and a more collaborative innovation culture.

While startups have long been praised for their agility and ingenuity, their path to scale remains steep. Infrastructure costs are high, regulations are complex, and access to markets, especially enterprise markets, is often gated. Corporations in telecom, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs), and pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, sit on large customer bases, distribution networks, and infrastructure. Yet they have historically remained risk-averse, operating in silos and depending heavily on internal Research and Development (R&D) rather than open collaboration.

At the demo day, which marked the graduation of 20 early-stage startups from MTN’s 12-week Cloud Accelerator program, speakers argued that Nigeria can no longer afford this divide. For Africa to build globally competitive companies, corporates must begin acting not just as mentors or sponsors, but as buyers, partners, and acquirers of startup innovations.

The era of transactional corporate–startup relationships is ending

The clearest articulation of this shift came from Babalola Oyeleye, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at MTN Nigeria. Speaking during a panel, he described the traditional corporate–startup dynamic as “highly transactional,” with corporates simply consuming solutions rather than co-creating them.

“But now, co-creation is what we need,” Oyeleye said. “Corporates have assets, infrastructure, customer access, and distribution. Startups have agility. If we collaborate deeply, engage customers together, conduct research together, and develop products together, we shorten our time to market.”

This breakdown of silos, he argued, transforms startups from mere vendors into partners that can execute rapid, experimental innovation on behalf of corporates, effectively becoming outsourced R&D engines.

Victor Asemota, an African tech ecosystem expert and founder of SwiftaCorp, an African software and technology services group, offered a global comparison to highlight what is missing in Nigeria.

“In Silicon Valley, 98% of all mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity comes from corporations,” he explained. “Google alone accounts for more than half of that. African corporations have not played that role. Many try to build everything internally instead of acquiring solutions proven by startups.”

Asemota’s observation points to a structural weakness in Nigeria’s innovation economy: startups build great products but rarely find local corporate acquirers or large-scale buyers. This forces many to rely on foreign markets, foreign investors, or, in some cases, relocation.

The consequence? Local ecosystems lose talent, Intellectual Property (IP), and long-term value.

For Lynda Saint-Nwafor, MTN Nigeria’s Chief Enterprise Business Officer, the goal was to build the kind of environment where startups do not merely learn, they plug directly into corporate infrastructure that can help them scale.

“Acceleration is more than technology,” she said in her keynote. “It requires exposure, structure, and clarity. Startups integrated into MoMo, enabling payments without complexity. They plugged into Chenosis, shortening development cycles. And through structured workshops, they gained investor readiness, product design, customer experience, founder wellness, and go-to-market frameworks.”

Still, the panelists acknowledged that this shift will not be easy. Corporate risk aversion remains a major barrier. Oyeleye explained that most corporates are hesitant to invest in early-stage innovation because they must choose between funding proven businesses or uncertain bets.

“Corporates already have functioning businesses. When you have limited capital, you ask yourself: do I invest in something uncertain or double down on what already works?” he said.

But with Nigeria’s demographic boom, infrastructure challenges, and evolving consumer behaviors, corporates must rethink this posture. The companies that participate in innovation today, he argued, will be the ones that dominate tomorrow’s markets.

Speakers at the event warned that the ecosystem pays a high price for fragmentation. Startups struggle to access critical assets. Corporates reinvent the wheel. Regulators move slowly because stakeholders fail to present unified positions. And innovation becomes slower and more expensive than it needs to be.

Asemota pointed out that corporates can offer startups something more valuable than money: regulatory leverage.

“When corporates collaborate with startups, they bring regulatory support that founders cannot afford alone,” he said. “This is one of the biggest values of corporate–startup partnerships.”