EchoVC Partners, a seed and early stage venture capital firm with Silicon Valley insights and experience will adminster the Federal Government’s $9 million IT Innovation Fund set to be given to Nigeria best entreprenuers.Speaking at the opening ceremony of DEMO Africa 2014 in Lagos, Nigeria Dr. Omobola Johnson, Minister of Communication Technology said the Federal Government of Nigeria had committed $9 million for IT Innovation Fund and her ministry is set to do its first investment.
Johnson said the government’s $9m seed capital will be managed by EchoVC. She added that the fund was just a month or so away from making its first investments. She also called on other players to built infrastructure to have more internet users in Africa, see more tech/internet businesses and then more investments into them.
EchoVC was founded by Eghosa Omoigui and Amber Fowler. Eghosa was an Intel Capital Director, Strategic Investments, Consumer Internet & Semantic Technologies and was personally responsible for sourcing investment opportunities in firms such as AdMob, Jaiku, Powerset, Facebook, LinkedIn, Teracent and Pandora among others. Amber was V.P Finance at Founders Fund, a VC firm with over $1B under its chest.
EchoVC has made a number of investments locally in Nigeria and by managing the IT Innovation Fund, it will help develop strategic platforms, incubate Nigerian high potential growth startups, mentor them and see them grow to IPO’s or huge exits unlike the government which might not have the resources and experiences to monitor every startups growth path.