After 10 Years, #StartupSouth Rebrands as OffChart NXT, Unveils N30m for Emerging Founders

New platform expands the decade-long movement’s focus on connecting founders beyond established startup hubs to capital, industry and opportunity.  After a decade of building platforms for entrepreneurs and emerging businesses, #StartupSouth is rebranding its flagship conference as OffChart NXT, marking a new phase in its effort to connect founders with capital, technology, industry and opportunity across Africa.

The rebranded conference, OffChart NXT 2026, will be held in Port Harcourt on October 22–23 under the theme, “Growth Doesn’t Follow Maps.”The transition follows ten editions of the #StartupSouth Conference, which has brought together founders, investors, technology professionals, policymakers, businesses and ecosystem leaders, particularly across Southern Nigeria.

According to the organisers, the rebrand reflects the growth of the movement and the need for its flagship platform to
take a broader view of where Africa’s next generation of businesses and opportunities can emerge.

“For the past decade, #StartupSouth has worked from a simple conviction: geography should not determine how far
ambition can travel,” said Uche Aniche, Convener of OffChart NXT and Founder of #StartupSouth. “After ten editions, we felt the conference needed an identity that could carry the larger conversation we are now convening about people, markets and opportunities emerging across a wider map of African economies.”

While the conference is adopting a new identity, #StartupSouth will remain the organisation and movement behind it. A major feature of the inaugural OffChart NXT edition will be the Startup Challenge & DealRoom, which will offer a N30 million prize pool to emerging founders.

The initiative is designed to go beyond the traditional pitch competition. Selected founders will participate in a structured venture-readiness process covering areas such as business traction, market opportunity and capital readiness before progressing to further evaluation, community voting and the final competition and DealRoom.

Ani Oko, a UK-based technology professional, member of the OffChart NXT Council and lead of the Startup Challenge & DealRoom Work Group, said the initiative is designed to ensure that founders gain more than prize money.

“The N30 million is important, but the real opportunity is to build a process that leaves founders stronger than we met
them,” Oko said. “We want to identify credible businesses, help founders sharpen how they think about traction, markets and capital, and put the strongest of them in front of people who can materially move their companies forward.”

The choice of Port Harcourt as the launch location also reflects OffChart NXT’s broader proposition. As one of Nigeria’s
major commercial and industrial centres, the city provides a fitting setting for a platform built around the idea that significant businesses can emerge outside the traditional startup hubs.

For Tomi Davies (TD), investor and technology entrepreneur, the shift is important because entrepreneurial potential exists far beyond established centres of innovation. “Great businesses don’t only come from places where capital already gathers. Across Africa, ambitious founders are building real businesses, solving real problems and creating jobs far beyond the established startup hubs,” he said.

With the rebrand, #StartupSouth is positioning OffChart NXT as a broader platform for discovering and connecting
the founders, markets and opportunities that conventional maps of Africa’s innovation economy may overlook.

OffChart NXT 2026 takes place in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, on 22–23 October 2026.