BusinessDay Nigeria BusinessDay 18 Jun 2018 | Page 30

30
BUSINESS DAY
C002D5556
Monday 18 June 2018
Start-Up Digest
A peep into Odunlami Adedayo’s logistics business
Josephine Okojie
O
dunlami Adebayo
is the founder of
Fa s t T r a c k D e -
livery Limited, a
start-up haulage
and logistics business that oper-
ates from Lagos to other parts of
the country.
Odunlami was inspired by
his late mum. He also refused at
an early stage of life to leave his
future to chance. “I did not want
to leave my future to chance, and
I have never seen myself as the
8am -5pm guy,” he says.
“I saw a business opportunity
in moving goods from one place
to another, especially agro prod-
ucts, and I decided to start Fast
Track Delivery Limited, a com-
pany that focuses on logistics,
haulage, courier service, import
and export,” the young entrepre-
neur tells Start-Up Digest.
Having identified an oppor-
tunity in the logistics business,
he established Fast Track in July
2015. His initial start-up capital
was N300,000, an amount he
raised through his personal
savings and from family and
friends.
The geophysics-turned-en-
trepreneur tells Start-Up-Digest
that he spent his initial capital to
purchase bicycles he used then
for delivery. “I started out with
a bicycle in delivering goods
initially. After few months, I
started investing in couriers and
other administrative set-ups,” he
discloses.
The young entrepreneur says
that the business has grown
tremendously since starting
owing to the fact that Fast Track
Odunlami Adedayo
Delivery has been able to de-
liver timeously. The firm now has
trucks, which support its logistics
services.
“I would say my business has
grown tremendously. The busi-
ness has shown steady and pro-
gressive growth, from delivering
with bicycles to using couriers,”
he further says.
Odunlami has only received
support from the Global Student
Entrepreneur Award after claim-
ing the 2nd runner up position
in 2016.
The business currently has
Start-ups attract investors, grow revenues
after accelerator programmes – Survey
JOSEPHINE OKOJIE
A
recent sur ve y con-
ducted by the Aspen
Network of Develop-
ment Entrepreneurs
has shown that early venture
businesses that participated in
accelerator programmes report
higher levels of new investments
and revenues relative to their
counterparts which did not par-
ticipate.
The report entitled, ‘Accelerat-
ing the Flow of Funds into Early-
Stage Ventures: An Initial Look at
Program Differences and Design
Choices’ has shown that many
accelerators explicitly aim to
catalyse equity investment, with
programming focused on invest-
ment readiness and connections
to equity investors.
The report shows that in a
sample of 52 ventures, the aver-
age flow of incremental funds
into participating businesses
had a greater significant average
flow than businesses that did not
participate in any accelerator
program.
“In the majority of these pro-
grams, this difference exceeds
the reported cost of running the
program. These superior funding
outcomes are accomplished in
different ways; many programs
are most effective at stimulatin