The Business Growth Initiative for Startups (BGIS) held its official programme reception on December 12, 2025, marking the close of its 2025 cohort and the premiere of its documentary, Women Who Build.
The event brought together founders, investors, ecosystem leaders, and programme partners in Lagos.
BGIS is a women-focused scale-support programme funded by the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and the UK-Nigeria Tech Hub, an initiative of the Digital Access Programme (DAP). The programme is implemented by Ubulu Development Foundation (UBDEV) and Spurt!. It was designed to support women-led, growth-stage startups in Nigeria with structured advisory, visibility, and strategic support to enable sustainable scaling.
Over five months, the programme worked with 14 women-led startups operating across sectors, including fintech, edtech, food, healthtech, AI, SaaS, logistics, creative commerce, and community health.
BGIS 2025 at a glance
The reception opened with remarks from Odiong Akpan, Chief Executive Officer of Ubulu Development Foundation, who reflected on the purpose of the BGIS programme and its focus on addressing structural gaps affecting women-led startups in Nigeria.
He described BGIS as a pilot model and encouraged ecosystem stakeholders to adopt similar approaches in supporting female founders.
“This programme was developed to do one thing: to provide additional support to female-led startups and founders. And that is because in the startup and innovation ecosystem, we have a lopsided representation, with few women-led businesses. And in instances where there is funding, we see some people just paying lip service to the support they provide women-led businesses,” Odiong said.
While noting the close of the cohort’s formal activities, he reaffirmed the partners’ commitment to continued engagement with the founders and broader ecosystem collaboration.
A key segment of the event was a one-on-one conversation between Folake Kofo-Idowu, Founder of Iyewo, and Oyindamola Oyinlola-Eyitayo, Programme Manager at the UK-Nigeria Tech Hub. The discussion focused on the challenges of building and scaling women-led businesses in Nigeria.
Kofo-Idowu shared the origin of Iyewo, a community-based primary healthcare company serving Nigeria’s informal sector. Trained as an infectious disease specialist, she spoke about identifying gaps in healthcare access for market traders, artisans, and informal workers who are often excluded from formal insurance systems. Iyewo, she explained, was intentionally designed to serve these groups.
The conversation also highlighted a broader pattern across the BGIS cohort, with women-led ventures often being customer-led and need-driven, and less primed for venture capital investments. Oyinlola-Eyitayo noted that while this approach aligns well with real-world needs, it frequently positions women founders in the social impact space, which remains under-supported by existing policy and financing structures.
Women Who Build premieres
The reception featured the premiere screening of Women Who Build, a 20-minute documentary showcasing the experiences, challenges, and ambitions of the 2025 BGIS cohort. Following the screening, featured founders shared reflections on their participation in the programme and the support received.
The evening concluded with a Deal Day Showcase hosted in partnership with Rising Tide Africa. Selected founders presented their businesses to angel investors from the Rising Tide Africa Angel Network. The pitches covered sectors including healthcare access for underserved communities (Iyewo), legal technology (PocketLawyers), and on-demand digital vehicle rental (Muvment).
The showcase prompted follow-up discussions, investor questions, and strategic feedback. Iyewo was noted as a standout presentation, with investors encouraging further documentation of impact metrics and outcomes to strengthen future fundraising and partnership efforts.
Although the reception marked the end of the cohort’s structured programme, BGIS outlined plans for continued engagement. The initiative will provide post-programme advisory support, amplify founder stories and traction through digital platforms, and work with partners to deepen ecosystem collaboration. The Women Who Build documentary was released on YouTube on December 15, 2025.
Commenting on the programme, Oyindamola Oyinlola-Eyitayo said the cohort comprises investment-ready, resilient women-led ventures positioned for long-term growth, adding that the next phase will focus on strengthening partnerships and expanding access to sustainable growth opportunities.
“BGIS is only the beginning, as it has created a pipeline of women-led businesses that are investment-ready, resilient, and positioned for long-term growth. The work ahead is about deepening partnerships and unlocking more pathways to sustainable growth.” Oyinlola-Eyitayo said.
BGIS targets female founders who are often overlooked by traditional accelerators and investment networks, combining technical support, local expertise, visibility, and investor access to help ventures build the operational capacity required to scale.
