Following the acquisition of iHub by CcHub, Bosun Tijani, the Chief Executive Officer of both organizations has shared details of his strategy for operating the multi-country hubs.
Although the acquisition of iHub by CcHub has made Tijani one of the most powerful figures in African tech with robust membership rosters, startup incubation programs, global partnerships, and VC activities from Nigeria to Kenya, he still faces plenty of challenges in integrating the two innovation hubs which are countries apart.
[READ MORE: Nigeria’s CcHub acquires a major Kenyan tech centre]
Speaking on the coming together of CcHub and iHub and how to align the organizations on the path of sustainability, Tijani noted that Cchub has been in existence for 9 years.
“When people talk about sustainability, we’ve been in business for 9 years, We de-emphasized grant funding six years ago; most of our revenue is actually earned revenue.”
Tijani made known that while iHub has been active with startup seed-investments, CcHub has a portfolio of companies through its Growth Capital Fund. This he intends to use to leverage more partnerships.
Going Forward, The CEO said that the team had started gaining collaborations from big African and global companies such as Facebook and MainOne.
Still on the list of things to do from the CcHub-iHub acquisition, Tijani said he was looking to connect iHub to CcHub’s Google-sponsored Pitch Drive, one which has done African startup tours of Asia and Europe and potentially take the show to the U.S. If taken to the US, it could lead to the organization having a permanent residence in San Francisco.
About CcHUB: CcHub was launched in 2011 and is Africa’s first open living lab and pre-incubation space with a community of over 14,000 people. It has provided support to a portfolio of over 120 early-stage ventures, providing solutions to social problems with technology including Lifebank, Riby, BudgIT and WeCyclers.
[READ ALSO: Nigeria’s CcHUB expands into East Africa]
About iHub: iHub was launched in 2010. The hub has seen over 500 companies receive business support services, 100+ of which have gone through incubation and accelerator programs.
