Loy Okezie

I am very excited to announce the official launch of the new Startups Nigeria platform (SN 2.0), built on an open source software and developed by a UK-based software development and management company, Encipher, our official technology partner.

Update (January 04, 2010): Read the official press release here.

From Version 1.0 to Version 2.0

Back in April 2008, I founded Startups Nigeria (SN 1.0) as a startups and technology news blog. The blog eventually became very popular, influential and highly respected within the Nigerian and African technology and social media space.

In fact, TechCrunch almost acquired the blog, but instead we decided to build a CrunchBase-like platform (soon to be launched), so as to have an updated (crowd-sourced) database of start-ups from Nigeria.

With this launch, Startups Nigeria has re-branded into a technology + startups + social media community with a new and official homepage found at www.startupsnigeria.org, with several social media pages found on Twitter, Facebook, Afrigator, Digg, Sturvs, YouNoodle, CrunchBase, Delicious,  StumbleUpon, Technorati, TakingITGlobal, NaijaPulse, FriendFeed, Flickr, Google, YouTube and VC4Africa amongst others.

What is Startups Nigeria 2.0?

Startups Nigeria 2.0 is a youth-driven, online community for technology enthusiasts, internet start-ups, companies, entrepreneurs, investors and students, all pioneering innovations in Nigeria’s emerging start-up industry and social media space.

With the new Startups Nigeria platform (currently on beta), users can create their personal profile, add and promote their start-ups, share their start-up stories, photos, videos, follow other start-ups, find ideal start-up partners, find technology-related jobs, find entrepreneurs and investors and lots more.

What’s the Future?

The idea of the platform is to help build Nigeria’s emerging dot-com start-ups industry and contribute towards a knowledge-based economy in Nigeria by the year 2020.

In the future, we hope to become a technology and start-ups incubator and help fund financially viable start-ups from Nigeria and African entrepreneurs. If you would like to collaborate or partner with us, kindly send us an email via partner@startupsnigeria.org

If you would like to work with Startups Nigeria either as writer, editor, researcher, community manager, developer or designer, kindly send us an email via jobs@startupsnigeria.org

What is Private Beta?

We are currently in private beta and will be launching the platform soonest! Private beta is a period when we test the site’s functionality for bugs, errors, etc and listen to user feedback and suggestions.

If you would like to be considered for a beta test invite or to be notified of when the website is ready for the general public, kindly follow this link.

Get ready for the “Startups Revolution” in Nigeria!

Tags: encipher, sn 2.0, software developers, startups nigeria, techcrunch