Nigerian Drone Start-up ‘Arone’ Gets First Venture Funding
Start-up drone company, Arone, says it has gotten the first venture funding of a start-up at the new business incubator, Roar Nigeria, at the University of Nigeria (UNN), Nsukka.
Chinwe Okolo, Site Incubator Manager, in a statement in Abuja on Friday, said the funding was a milestone achievement for the incubator showing it had become a start-up hot spot in Southeast Nigeria.
‘’We got an investment of N2m – about 5,556 dollars from two investors, Chibuzo Ujam and Echkwudi Daniel, for equity in Arone’s parent company, Magic Mirror to build our prototype drone.
“We are on schedule to complete our prototype by the end of March,’’ Arone founder, Mr Emmanuel Ezenwere was quoted as saying.
Ezenwere said the funding was also a milestone for the company, which was now ready to start hardware investments and major prototyping of its business idea.
He said Arone had an idea to create a network of charging stations for drones in Nigeria in order to facilitate and increase the speed of deliveries in Nigeria.
“An example is the ability of medicine or blood being able to be sent very quickly to patients in rural areas or making fast deliveries of groceries in cities with traffic problems.
“Arone has world class technical ideas and knowledge and the drone idea is one of those golden nuggets you seldom see,’’ he said.
Ezenwere said the incubator Roar Nigeria started in 2016 and now has 12 start-ups in areas ranging from eHealth to mobile services and hardware solutions.
According to him, one of the many achievements of the Vice Chancellor of UNN, Prof. Benjamin Ozumba in collaboration with Benefiting Our Communities (BOC) innovations, a private sector organisation led by Charles Emembolu.
The incubator is run in close relationship with Ideon Science Park of Sweden.
“So smart, still relatively simple to understand and with a huge need in the market. I have no doubt that these guys will create groundbreaking things,’’ the External Incubator Manager Jonas Michanek was quoted as saying.
Michanek is a Swedish entrepreneur from Ideon Science Park in Sweden, helping to set up the incubator, Roar Nigeria at UNN, Nsukka.
– Concise News/NAN
