ASeM | Growth, more growth and a voice for the growing SMasses’

A few weeks ago, representatives of the Nigerian Stock Exchange reached out to ask me to become part of the team around promoting a new small securities platform called ASeM — Alternative Securities Market (for Emerging Markets). ASeM is to act in a similar capacity to London Stock Exchange’s AIM (Alternative Investment Market), where the idea is to open up capital markets and investors to earlier stage (higher risk, but bigger reward) companies who are in desperate need of cheaper financing options. <rant> Getting a loan in Nigeria is nigh impossible. 100%+ collateral requirements and 20%+ interest rates. iROKO moved over 1Bn through a Nigeria bank account in 2012 but they refused to give us an overdraft (one we didn’t actually need) of 3Mn because we ‘lacked collateral’. <rant>
I know of at least $100Mn worth of investments which have gone into Nigerian internet startups in the last 2 years. That has largely been from foreign investors. As amazing as that is I still ...