AN OVERVIEW OF THE NIGERIA STARTUP ACT OF 2022 AS A REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR AN EMERGING ECOSYSTEM.

Globally, technological advancements are at an all-time high. This evolution presents unprecedented opportunities for growth and development for Nigeria and the continent of Africa.On a global scale, the former, based on the growth of its startup ecosystem, ranked 2nd in the hierarchy of advanced ecosystems in Africa and 131st among 190 countries in 2019 globally. Presently, startup businesses are springing up at a very fast rate all over the world. This is,however, not without the incidences of cybercrime, environmental factors, funding challenges, and other problems. This led to the need to regulate the startup business ecosystem and the enactment of the Nigeria Startup Act 2022. This is a laudable effort because previous literature on startup businesses and their effect on the economy gave no consideration to the legal frameworks regulating them. This paper is an overview of the said Act. It examines its operations and objectivesfor stakeholders involved in startup business and its adequacy as a legal framework regulating an emerging startup ecosystem in Nigeria. In conclusion, the paper offers recommendations forsustaining startup seed funds through the provision of regulations limiting the amount investable per time and the recovery time limit. An increase in incentives to support the growth of startups is also suggested. Companies seeking to be registered as a startup but are still undergoing incorporation processes should be given a provisional label to allow them to start, while registration of the startup label focusing on local markets is advocated for