Key Details
Read This Before You Apply
- This is not a grant. You pay the money back — twice over. Take ₦1 million and you repay ₦2 million. There is no interest and no compounding, so the total never grows beyond 2×, but it is still repayment, not free money. If you are looking for money you never return, apply to the Student Venture Capital Grant or another grant on this site instead.
- The whole fund is ₦5 million. That is the total pilot allocation across every company they back — 3 to 5 of them. Realistically that is roughly ₦1 million to ₦1.7 million each. Size your expectations accordingly and do not build a plan that needs ₦20 million.
- You need revenue already. Repayment is a percentage of monthly revenue, so a pre-revenue business has nothing to repay from. Series A is described as being for "early revenue-generating startups", Series B for consistent revenue.
- Your equity is security, not a sale — read that clause yourself. ADAVEL states the equity stake is held as security and released to the founder on full RBF repayment. That is genuinely founder-friendly if it holds. Get it in writing in the term sheet, and be clear on what happens to the shares if you cannot repay.
- This is a brand-new fund with a short track record. Its own listed portfolio at time of writing is ADAVEL Services Ltd and Fundrepublic.co. That is not a reason to avoid it, but do the same diligence on them that they will do on you.
- The commitment is 50 months. Just over four years of monthly KPI submissions and revenue-linked payments. Make sure you want that relationship before you sign.
About This Opportunity
ADAVEL Fund is a Lagos-based pilot fund set up to back what it calls Nigeria's grassroot entrepreneurs — with a deliberate focus on founders operating outside the Lagos technology corridor, which is where the overwhelming majority of Nigerian startup capital currently lands.
The instrument is revenue-based financing rather than a conventional equity round. In practice that means repayments flex with your business: in a slow month you pay less, in a strong month you pay more, and the total you owe is fixed at exactly twice what you received. For a business with real but uneven revenue — which describes most Nigerian SMEs — that is a materially easier shape than a bank loan with a fixed monthly obligation.
The process runs in four stages. You apply online, top applications are scored against a weighted rubric covering team, market, traction, product and financials, shortlisted founders do a 30-minute virtual pitch, and finalists present live to a panel. The top three to five receive negotiated term sheets.
The published timeline is screening through November 2026, interviews in December, and pitch day plus funding in January 2027. Beyond the money, portfolio companies get monthly mentorship, introductions across ADAVEL's network, a live KPI and repayment dashboard, and legal and compliance support.
Honest summary: the cheque is small and the capital is not free, but the terms are unusually transparent for this market, the application takes under half an hour, and the four-week response time means you find out quickly. For a small revenue-generating business outside Lagos, the cost of applying is low.
The Terms In Plain Numbers
| If you receive | ₦1,000,000 |
|---|---|
| You repay in total | ₦2,000,000 |
| Interest rate | 0% — the 2× multiple is the entire cost |
| How you repay | An agreed percentage of monthly revenue |
| Over how long | 50 months, or sooner via early buyout |
| Equity taken | Up to 25%, held as security |
| Equity returned | Yes — on full repayment |
Official portal: adavelfund.com. FundFinder AI surfaces opportunities — always verify details on the official source before applying. This page describes financing terms, not financial advice; read the term sheet in full before signing.