On Friday, July 30, 2021, selected hardware startups from across Nigeria in a pioneering edition converged in Enugu State at the Hardware Garage Centre to seek pre-seed investments.
The event clouded with high hopes saw selected investors and representatives sit at the Garage while others who couldn’t make the physical event connected from across the country and 3 other countries including the USA, UK and Kenya.
With high hopes, each of the selected startups ranging from Blieu Innovation, Switch, Obtech, Green Creation and Dreamfix pitched their ideas to the investors and with each seeking pre-seed investments and product development support for their startup.
Blieu Innovation pitched theor power management tools to the investors, Switch makes it possible for her clients to completely move off-grid and off-diesel forever, through her solar electricity service.
Obtech develops and sell consumer electronics products that make life easier, stress-free and convenient for everybody, every day.
Green Creation demonstrated their ability to synthesize cassava liquid as fuel for their generators with a proof of concept revealing a very low cost and effective way of generating electricity.
Dream fix focuses on retrofitting fuel vehicles to electric vehicles.
During the pitch event, they showed how they potentially want to turn over 1,000 fuel-backed tricycle (keke Napep) to electrically driven tricycles earning a daily premium on usage.
Among the highlights of the event was Obtech securing over USD15,000 pre-seed investment pledges pending a due diligence report on the company by the Garage.
Obtech also caught the attention of most of the investors as they unveiled their water and electricity metering system seeking pre-seed of USD10,000.
“We are proud of the investors who have not lost hope in the ecosystem and who still believe that hardware startups can scale in Nigeria. We are also very proud of our startups who have shown diligence in developing and scaling their startups.”
More so, Dream fix raised USD10,000 pre-seed to develop their project while also seeking extra funding to retrofit 50 Keke Napep in the next 6 months.
About Hardware Garage
Hardware Garage is an acceleration centre where hardware ideas/prototypes or concepts that are sellable in Nigeria are transformed into commercially viable products.
It’s a truism that Nigerians (Africans) are embodied with lots of ideas but little or none of these ideas come to fruition because of the present ecosystem available.
Hardware Garage’s method has proven worthy of replication. Since 2019, it has successfully supported few startups and projects in Nigeria helping them develop a sellable product in the country.
Some of these startups include Greenage Technologies, Automatenics, REB project, GEL attests to this success.
Hardware Garage’s aim is to help Africans transform their dreams to selling products.
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