Introduction
For many Nigerian entrepreneurs, building a technology company with global ambitions has often meant looking outside Nigeria for a suitable corporate structure. A common approach has been to incorporate in suitable jurisdictions such as Delaware, using that entuty to hold intellectual property as a foreign parent company and raise capital from investors who are more familiar with the legal and financial systems in those jurisdictions, while retaining the company’s developers and much of its operations in Nigeria.
While this structure may make commercial sense for the business and its investors, it can also mean that a significant part of the value generated by Nigerian talent and innovation is ultimately held outside the country. Itana, formerly known as Talent City, seeks to offer an alternative.
Licensed by the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA), Itana describes itself as Africa’s first digital special economic zone. Unlike the traditional free-zone model built largely around factories, warehouses and the physical movement of goods, Itana is designed primarily for technology, finance and service businesses, with much of its business formation and administrative processes intended to be handled digitally.
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