Lagos is pulsating with entrepreneurial energy. Against the backdrop of traffic jams and digital noise, three startups have emerged, promising not just technological novelty, but solutions to daily problems, learning, nutrition, and access to equipment.
These are the first companies in Antler Lagos’ (LOS1) flagship portfolio.
At a recent event, marking a significant milestone in Antler’s journey in Africa, it celebrated innovation, resilience, and the exceptional founders building transformative solutions across the continent.
Over the last few months, Antler Lagos worked closely with bold, visionary entrepreneurs through its first cohort – LOS1 to help them transform early-stage ideas into investable, scalable ventures.
Antler also showed the road ahead with the launch of LOS2 – its expanded vision for supporting even more African founders with capital, networks, and world-class mentorship.
Antler is a global early-stage venture capital firm that enables and invests in exceptional founders from the earliest stages – from idea to scale.
Since launching in Lagos, Antler has become a key driver of innovation in Nigeria’s tech ecosystem, offering a structured platform that combines: capital to kickstart high-potential ideas; expert mentorship and deep operator networks, a global founder community of 8,000+ entrepreneurs across 30+ cities.
Through this model, Antler is empowering founders to tackle some of Africa’s most pressing challenges – from financial inclusion and health access to logistics, education, and sustainability.
Thus, after the eight-week residency program, Antler selected Cubbes, Forti Foods, and raba as its inaugural portfolio in West Africa.
This move underscores Antler’s strong belief in Nigeria’s, and Africa’s, capacity to generate high-impact innovation.
Founders, Vision & Validation
Cubbes is an edtech platform that launched in 2024. With a combination of AI-tutors, flashcards, smart planners, and other tools, it helps university students organize course materials and improve performance.
Already, it has reached about 50,000 students across 100 institutions in both Nigeria and Uganda. Early users report improvements of over 50% in grades.
Forti Foods takes on a more physical challenge: feeding communities. By delivering shelf-stable, culturally familiar ready-to-eat meals that require no cooking or cold chain, Forti aims to serve institutions like defence agencies and humanitarian programs. It also plans to supply over one million meals annually.
Raba seeks to solve a financing barrier. It is a lease-to-own financing platform for equipment dealers who want to offer affordable, accessible equipment options to SMEs in food processing, manufacturing, and other sectors.
The model provides liquidity, risk infrastructure, and dealer tools.
The Antler Playbook: How They Found These Startups
Antler’s approach in Lagos is not unlike a lab: during the curated 8-week residency founders receive mentorship, access to global networks, and tech tools, up to US$400,000 worth, and much more if their startup is selected for deeper investment, including US$4 million worth of tools and support.
Lola Masha, partner at Antler Africa, said the firm stands out by investing very early, not just in tech per se, but in what solves real problems.
She reeled out statistics that underscore the scale of what Antler is tackling:
“Antler Africa has reviewed over 20,000 applications since it launched. So far, in Lagos and Nairobi cohorts combined, Antler has selected 38 founders. We have committed more than US$700,000 in pre-seed funding to startups this year. 42% of the selected founders in these early cohorts are female”.
Anil Atmaramani, also a partner at Antler, echoed this adding that the cohort process forces founders to validate their problem, test their solution, and crucially, show that there is willingness to pay.
“These figures suggest two things: there is strong, diverse interest in solving deep problems via startups; and Antler is pushing inclusion as part of its investment thesis”, he said.
Why Edtech, Food, and Equipment Financing?
These sectors aren’t random picks. Each addresses important gaps:
Edtech is vital in a continent where access to quality education is uneven, and where digital tools can help bypass infrastructural limitations. Cubbes founded by Peter Adeyemi & Emmanuel Akinyele, is positioned to address this.
Food security, especially in ready-to-eat options, matters in contexts where cooking fuel, cold chains, or even time are scarce. Forti Foods founded by Adenike Adekunle, has developed a model of shelf-stable, culturally relevant meals makes sense in many institutional contexts.
Equipment financing unlocks productivity: many small enterprises can’t afford to buy equipment upfront. Opeyemi Bolarinwa, Raba co-founder, re-echoed this during a chat with the press, stressing that lease-to-own models reduce cost barriers: machinery, tools, processing equipment, etc., can accelerate growth in manufacturing or food processing.
How Antler will Help the Startups Surmount Challenges Ahead
The aforementioned startups, even with strong early metrics, several potential obstacles to scaling operations in infrastructure-constrained environments exist: logistics, power, supply chains can erode margins.
Also, regulatory and financing hurdles; accessible capital, interest rates, risk pricing are often unfavorable for early-stage, socially-oriented startups.
Trust and market adoption: getting institutions, students, or businesses to adopt new platforms or foods can take time, especially when cultural preferences, quality perception, or pricing are factors.
Antler’s value-add, mentorship, early capital, network connections, will help the trio cushion against some risks. Their global founder community of over 8,000 entrepreneurs becomes a resource for insights, growth, partnerships.
What This Means for Nigeria & Africa
Antler’s Lagos initiative signals a maturing startup ecosystem in Nigeria hence investors are starting to believe in seed-stage ventures beyond just fintech and consumer apps.
It also shows there is space for innovations with dual impact: commercial sustainability and social or infrastructural importance (food, education, SME productivity).
And female founders are increasingly present, making up nearly half of early cohorts, suggesting a shift in who is building solutions.
If portfolios like these succeed, they won’t just generate returns, they might shift how Africa solves its own problems.
A scale-up of tens of such startups addressing core issues could contribute meaningfully to employment, productivity, food security, or educational outcomes across the continent.
Antler Lagos ’s first portfolio picks; Cubbes, Forti Foods, and Raba, aren’t just novel ideas. They are carefully selected responses to persistent African challenges: learning, nutrition, and equitable access to tools.
With backing in infrastructure, capital, and mentorship, these ventures have a chance to grow fast, meaningfully, and inclusively.
Their success will depend on more than just good product-market fit. It will require navigating regulatory landscapes, ensuring operational stability, and building trust among users.
But with the momentum Antler has built, and the appetite Nigeria has shown for digital solutions, this is more than a hopeful experiment.
It might be the start of something transformative, especially with the launch of the second cohort (LOS2) as Antler’s commitment to identifying and supporting African founders addressing challenges in financial inclusion, health, logistics, education, and sustainability with capital, networks, and world-class mentorship.
