Picture a funding meeting where the investor already knows your sector, your stage and your story. That is the idea behind a new invitation-only drive in Nigeria.
Magna Collective, with Google for Startups, the UK-Nigeria Tech Hub and the Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation (ONDI), is running an Investor Connection Drive. It will bring more than 25 Nigerian startups face to face with more than 15 venture capital investors. Every meeting is matched in advance. Attendance is by invitation only.
Magna Collective is an innovation intelligence firm. It is running the drive with delivery partners POV, SALG and Tech4Dev. The startups range from pre-seed to Series A. Magna picked them from its database of more than 25,000 companies and from 150 extra applications. They work in fintech, health, AI, logistics, energy, agriculture and education.
The matching is the point. Magna’s chief executive, Femi Awoniyi, says that pairing founders and investors beforehand makes every meeting count from the first minute. Investors meet founders whose stage and sector fit their mandates. Founders spend less time pitching to the wrong room. Magna also plans to track investor follow-ups and any capital commitments that come out of the drive.
The timing is no accident. Equity is harder to find for Nigerian startups. Partech’s 2025 Africa tech venture capital report, as cited by Tech in Africa, shows Nigerian equity funding fell 21% last year, and the number of equity deals fell 19%. Nigerian startups have raised about $635 million from January to September 2026, a big jump on last year. But TechCabal reports that four companies, Moove, Flutterwave, Jumia and Yellow Card, took roughly $440 million of it, or about 69%. Early-stage founders have felt the squeeze most.
Investors are also asking for more. They look for steady revenue and a clear route to profit. A strong product is no longer enough on its own. A short, focused meeting with the right investor is one way to show that you meet the bar.
Google for Startups and ONDI add weight to the drive. Google says its Accelerator Africa programme has backed 106 startups from 17 African countries since 2018. It says those companies have raised more than $263 million and created more than 2,800 jobs. ONDI is part of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). Its job is to drive Nigeria’s digital innovation agenda and support founders, investors and government bodies.
Why it matters: Many African founders send cold emails and wait. A pre-matched room turns a hopeful pitch into a real conversation. If the drive leads to signed term sheets, it could become a model for other markets. Magna’s plan to track follow-ups will show whether it does.
Before you go: If you are among the invited founders, prepare a short pitch with your revenue, your traction and your path to profit. Know which investors will be in the room and what each one backs. Plan your follow-up within days, not weeks. If you were not invited, watch for the next round and keep your numbers and your deck ready.
Sources: TechCabal on the Investor Connection Drive (reported 23 October 2026); Tech in Africa on Nigeria’s VC slowdown, citing Partech’s 2025 Africa Tech VC Report; bne IntelliNews on Nigeria’s nine-month funding.
A note for startup founders: Don’t practice on investors. Practice on AI first. RaiseReady by Index Prima is an AI fundraising simulator for African founders: upload your pitch deck, get a readiness score and face a tough AI investor before the real meeting. Find this post, and every post we publish, at raiseready.indexprima.com.
