SV Hospitality Innovation Lab (SHIL), dedicated to novel hospitality solutions, has launched to serve as a test bed and community for hospitality innovators in Nigeria.

The innovation lab is located within SV Chrome Hotels in Jabi, Abuja, and managed in partnership with innovation centre Co-Creation Hub (CcHub).

SHIL is a four-month prototyping programme that will support innovators in transforming their ideas into working products, and provide a ready market for them test these solutions. The innovation lab also hosts a co-working space for entrepreneurs, technologists, students, freelancers and innovators in Abuja to work out from.

Selected teams – in return for seven per cent equity – will get access to 45 rooms in SV Chrome Hotel, and its customers, for prototyping, pre-incubation support and possible funding of up to US$5,000 from CcHub, industry insights from experts within SV Chrome Hotels’ parent company IMPACTO Group, office space, internet and other utilities.

They will also receive US$3,000 worth of AWS Credits and products credits from Hubspot and Zendesk, while startups that show considerable traction will get fast tracked access to CcHub’s incubation programme, with up to US$25,000 in funding and potential funding up to US$250,000 from the incubator’s Growth Capital fund.

SHIL is looking for teams with a minimum viable product (MVP) or idea for an innovative hospitality solution, with committed full-time founders and at least one technical person on the team. They must also be based in Abuja or be willing to move to Abuja for the duration of the programme.

“We have observed that innovators creating solutions for the hospitality industry in Nigeria typically build in isolation from the hotels and guests who are the end-users of the solution. We want to provide these teams with the access to hotel infrastructure, customers, and other resources needed to build solutions that solve a clear problem for hotels and their guests,” SHIL said.

Applications are open until July 3, with final selection set for July 7. The programme will begin on July 23.

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