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By Chinenye Anuforo
MTN Nigeria has signalled a major shift in its long-term digital infrastructure strategy with the unveiling of its MTN Cloud Accelerator Programme, positioning cloud technology as the backbone for Africa’s next generation of high-growth startups.
Speaking at the MTN Cloud Accelerator Day in Lagos, the Chief Operating Officer, Ayham Moussa, said the telecom giant is now committed to enabling African founders to scale through locally anchored cloud solutions designed for the continent’s realities.
Moussa told an audience of investors, founders and industry leaders that the initiative, launched July 1 by the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, was created not as another training programme but as an engine for scale. He said the Accelerator is built on a belief that Africa’s next global companies will emerge from founders who understand the continent deeply and who are backed by cloud infrastructure capable of supporting global-level performance. He urged startups to build fast and lean, adopt resilient designs, and prioritise local infrastructure delivered with global standards.
The programme featured pitches from startups operating in financial inclusion, SME credit, cloud automation and tech talent export. Each of them showcased the scale of Africa’s challenges and the opportunities that effective cloud infrastructure can unlock.
Regxta, founded by Rukayat Bello, is targeting the 600 million underserved micro-businesses across Africa. Drawing from her mother’s experience as an unbanked business owner, Bello built a digital lending platform that uses artificial intelligence to score and disburse loans to individuals without bank history or valid identification. Since its launch in 2021, the platform has served 25,000 micro-entrepreneurs, created over 200 agent jobs, processed loans valued at $5.5 million and maintained a loan default rate of less than one percent significantly lower than Nigeria’s industry average of five percent. Regxta is now seeking $2 million to expand its technology and footprint across Nigeria.
PipeOps, represented by its CEO Samuel Ogbonyomi, wants to solve the chronic global shortage of cloud DevOps engineers. The company automates complex cloud infrastructure processes, enabling businesses to deploy applications in under one minute without specialised expertise. The startup has recorded more than 80,000 deployments, achieved 300 percent year-on-year revenue growth, and onboarded more than 3,000 customers. Samuel said the integration with MTN Cloud would allow African businesses to deploy and scale faster using affordable, local cloud infrastructure. PipeOps is raising $1.5 million to deepen its enterprise offerings.
Another startup, Hadi Finance, led by co-founder Bidemi Adebayo, is building an operating system for small businesses. The company provides SMEs with visibility, embedded finance, inventory credit, invoice financing and soon asset financing. With over 3,000 SMEs on its platform, 65 percent of them are women. Hadi Finance has maintained a loan default rate of 1.1 percent and is targeting part of Nigeria’s estimated $300 billion SME financing gap.
ProDevs, founded by Faith Dike, is addressing the challenge of talent export and global hiring inefficiencies. The company has placed over 500 African developers in global companies, generated $1.2 million in revenue and built a pool of 15,000 trained tech professionals. Faith said the partnership with MTN would allow more African talent to access global roles by leveraging MTN’s cloud infrastructure, GPUs and enterprise support.
A panel discussion moderated by MTN Cloud Accelerator Programme Manager, Cynthia Chisom, examined the state of startup investment on the continent. Venture investor Victor Asemota said Africa’s market trajectory mirrors earlier patterns in Southeast Asia, noting that while the continent may seem several cycles behind global markets, its scale and fragmentation create enormous opportunities for innovation.
For MTN, the Accelerator is a deliberate long-term investment in the continent’s digital economy. The company sees cloud infrastructure as central to Africa’s next phase of economic expansion, especially as businesses shift to digital operations and demand reliable, affordable and locally hosted cloud services. Mosa described the Accelerator as only the beginning of MTN’s plans to support the continent’s innovators.
As Africa moves toward an estimated $180 billion digital economy by 2025, MTN is positioning itself as a key enabler of the infrastructure that will power future unicorns.
