Cascador has named the 10 companies joining its 2026 ScaleUp Program, a 12-week course for growth-stage businesses that ends with a pitch day carrying $50,000 in prizes. All 10 are Nigerian. Cascador says they were chosen from more than 1,000 qualified applications.
Cascador is a Lagos-based organisation that trains and funds growth-stage founders. It was set up in 2019, runs one cohort a year, and puts money behind the training through its Catalytic Fund, which deploys up to $5 million a year in local currency debt, equity and guarantees. Sterling Bank is the fund’s custodian and structuring partner. Founders who finish the programme can apply to it.
The 10 companies
Descriptions here follow what each company says it does, with the sector in plain terms:
- Venco, software for running gated estates and apartment blocks. It handles service charge collection, utility payments, visitor access and resident communication.
- SunFi, a platform that matches households and businesses to solar systems and payment plans, then handles installation and monitoring.
- ColdHubs, solar-powered walk-in cold rooms placed in open-air markets and farm clusters, rented by the crate by the day.
- EHA Clinics, a primary healthcare chain in Kano, Abuja and Lagos, with pharmacy and home-care services attached.
- Beauty Hut Africa, retail and distribution of local and international beauty products.
- BEYOND Fitness, gyms and recovery facilities sold to professionals and corporate teams.
- Ziba Beach Resort, a leisure resort built for Nigeria’s domestic tourism market.
- Tulay Africa, which sells Nigerian critical minerals, including rare earth oxides from bastnasite deposits, to industrial buyers abroad.
- Maanj Agric, which connects smallholder farmers to financing, inputs, storage and buyers.
- Finger Chops, a bakery supplying bread to households, retailers and institutions.
Six of the 10 businesses are led by women, and the founders come from five of Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, according to Cascador.
The Kenyan name on the list
Venco is the one company here that Kenyan readers may already use without knowing it. We covered its $670,000 pre-seed round in December 2022, when it was live in six cities across Nigeria and Kenya with more than 12,000 property units on the platform. That round, led by Zrosk Investment Management, is still the only funding Venco has disclosed publicly. Chude Osiegbu, its CEO and co-founder, said the company wants to take the platform “to more communities across new cities and countries”.
The programme itself was open wider than the cohort suggests. When applications opened in April, Cascador said it would pick 12 founders, and its application page sets eligibility as businesses “based or operating in Sub-Saharan Africa” with a preference for Nigerian ventures. It ended up with 10 companies, all Nigerian. The release does not say why the cohort came in two short of the 12 places advertised.
What the cohort gets
The 12 weeks split into two weeks of in-person sessions in Lagos, covering the kickoff and pitch week, and 10 weeks of virtual sessions for founders and their leadership teams. Cascador covers travel, lodging and meals for the in-person weeks and pays each founder a $5,000 personal development stipend on completion. Alongside that, founders get one-to-one time with investors and advisers, and the Pitch Day prize pool of $50,000.
Cascador says its 70 alumni ventures have raised $125 million between them since 2019, created more than 67,000 direct and indirect jobs in 2025, and reached 1.7 million customers that year. Its own homepage still carries an older $55 million figure for alumni fundraising, which was the number it used in May 2025 when it launched the Catalytic Fund with Sterling Bank at $2 million.
The comparison closest to home is Safaricom’s Spark accelerator, which named 10 startups for its second cohort last October. Spark is a corporate programme feeding one operator’s ecosystem. Cascador is broader and less tech-only, and this cohort shows it: a bakery, a beach resort and a minerals exporter sit next to the software companies.
If you run a business in Kenya and this sounds relevant, the next intake matters more than this one. Cascador’s application page says applications for the Spring 2027 cohort open in November 2026, and eligibility still covers Sub-Saharan Africa. On the evidence of the 2026 list, Nigerian companies remain the ones getting in.
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