NSIA injects $200m investment fund to boost Nigeria’s Tech sector
TECHDIGEST – The Nigeria sovereign investment authority (NSIA) on Thursday said it has received approval from the Board of Directors to raise $200 million to deepen investment and growth in the technology sector. Pius Anyiador, senior vice president and lead portfolio manager, NSIA disclosed this on Thursday at the BusinessDay Breakfast Meeting (BBM) in Abuja.
The innovation will create an ecosystem, expected to catalyze and stimulate economic activities, helping start ups, which it considers as “ engine room” for mass job creation and exponential economic growth.
The fund, according to the NSIA, is hedged on providing enabling technology space in specialized fields, such as cybersecurity and broadband connectivity, which will further drive investments and growth in the sector.
Already, the NSIA said the Board of Directors have granted approval to raise the $200m needed for the investment, while $25m seed capital has been raised.
According to Anyiador, the NSIA has added the tech project “to our list of focus areas” adding that “So far, our board recently approved a $200 million fund, we have our seed capital of $25 million.
“At NSIA, we invest by co- investing and we hope to attract other technology investors into this fund and invest continuously, but we are not waiting for them to come, we have already started in-house,” he said. The NSIA Senior Vice president also informed that the authority is developing two projects in the tech space which are the fiber and tech hub projects. In addition to technology, Anyiador said the authority has other specific areas of focus tailored to drive economic growth and impact the ordinary Nigerian.
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These according to him are, Agriculture, healthcare, waterways, power, gas industrialization , and financial market infrastructure
The Senior Vice President, speaking on the Pharmaceutical sector, stated that the NSIA plans manufacturing of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients for manufacturing of drugs in the country.
This, according to him, is to bring down the high cost of drugs in Nigeria, adding that, “ drugs are so expensive in Nigeria because the active ingredients are not manufactured in the country”
“ We have plans to set up a manufacturing firm to produce the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients for the Pharmaceutical firms in the country, so they can source them locally”
He said, “We have a pharmaceutical concept that has passed through the first approval phase and will be solely on manufacturing of APIs. We will not invest in the manufacturing of drugs, we have people doing that already. So we are taking a big step back to get APIs.
“As we speak right now, the concept paper has been done, we are doing a feasibility study on the type of API we want to manufacture, and once we agree on that, we will start to manufacture APIs in Nigeria. So it’s easy for Emzor, Pfizer, and others to just walk into the company and buy the APIs.”
Also speaking further on its contributions to healthcare funding, the Senior vice president said the authority is currently focusing on tertiary health care, diagnostics and medical manufacturing.
He informed that the NSIA established an oncology centre in Lagos which according to him was very instrumental during the COVID-19 pandemic as it catered for cancer patients who ordinarily may have travelled out of the country for treatment. He further disclosed that the Authority has approved the development of 23 world class diagnostic centres across the country, in addition to the two diagnostic centres that have already been established by the NSIA.
