10 Best Startup Incubators & Hubs in Nigeria

17 Sep 2025

Startup incubators & innovation hubs are key parts of Nigeria?s entrepreneurial ecosystem. They provide early-stage support to founders and startups in areas such as mentorship, access to workspace / co-working facilities, networking, training (business, technical, market), sometimes seed funding or linkages to investors, and often support in product-development or go-to-market strategy. Some also help with legal, regulatory and compliance support, or with partnerships with universities, government, or investors. In Nigeria, these hubs play a critical role because many young entrepreneurs lack infrastructure, access to capital, or strong networks. Hubs in Lagos tend to dominate due to concentration of tech investment and talent, but there has been growing spread into other regions: Abuja, Jos, Ilorin, Uyo, etc. Public-private partnerships, NGOs, donors and philanthropic programmes (like the Tony Elumelu Foundation) also contribute significantly. When choosing an incubator/hub, founders often consider: the quality of mentorship, track record of alumni startups, access to funding or investors, sector focus (e.g. fintech, cleantech, agritech, social innovation), cost, geographic proximity, digital resources, and how long they can stay in the program. Challenges include sustainable funding of the hub itself, ensuring good follow-on investment for startups after incubation, infrastructure costs, maintaining mentor quality, and regional access (not everyone is in Lagos/Abuja). Because of recent startup indices (e.g. StartupBlink) showing Lagos as one of Africa?s top startup cities and growing ecosystems in other cities, this list should be quite up-to-date and relevant.