Yabacon Valley: The Untold Story of Yaba's Tech Boom

Yabacon Valley: The Untold Story of Yaba's Tech Boom

Yabacon Valley traces its origins to the 2010s and the founding of the Co-Creation Hub (CcHUB) on Herbert Macaulay Way. Today, Yaba inspires the entire African continent.

CcHUB: The Starting Point of an Ecosystem

Co-Creation Hub (CcHUB), Nigeria's first technology incubation space, was founded in 2011 in Yaba by Bosun Tijani and Femi Longe. More than 120 startups have passed through the incubator since its founding, supported by organizations like the Indigo Trust and the Omidyar Network. The arrival of telecom operator MainOne, which rolled out high-speed fiber-optic infrastructure along the Herbert Macaulay Way corridor, proved a decisive catalyst in anchoring tech startups in the neighborhood long-term, giving rise to the nickname "Yabacon Valley" — a blend of Yaba and Silicon Valley.

Unicorns Born in Yaba

Companies now known worldwide were born or grew up in this corridor: Paystack, founded in 2015 by Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi, was acquired by Stripe for $200 million in 2020, one of African tech's most emblematic exits. Flutterwave and Andela, other major names that emerged from Yaba's orbit, have raised hundreds of millions of dollars from international investors, helping make Lagos the top destination for venture capital on the African continent.

Growth That Has Outgrown the Neighborhood

Yabacon Valley's success has, however, created tensions: several major tech companies have since left Yaba for Ikoyi or Victoria Island, citing the need for more robust infrastructure (stable power, modern office space) that the older, denser original neighborhood sometimes struggles to provide. iLagosCity notes that despite this geographic spread, Yaba retains a central symbolic and operational role, particularly for young startups still in incubation that continue to orbit CcHUB and nearby universities like the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and Yaba College of Technology, which feed the city's technical talent pool with developers, designers, and young entrepreneurs every year, ensuring Yaba a steady stream of new projects even as some established companies move on.