There’s $65 million sitting in a fund right now for Nigerian tech founders, game developers, animators, filmmakers, musicians, and creative entrepreneurs.
It’s Shariah-compliant, open to everyone regardless of faith, and most people building in this space have no idea it exists.
The IsDB–iDICE Murabaha Debt Fund is now accepting applications and for anyone who has ever been told their creative or tech business doesn’t qualify for traditional bank financing, this is worth reading carefully.
The fund is part of Nigeria’s iDICE Programme, the Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises initiative which is one of the largest government-backed innovation programmes on the African continent at $617 million in total.
It is jointly financed by the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), the African Development Bank (AfDB), and Agence Française de Développement (AFD), with the Bank of Industry (BOI) as implementing agency.
The IsDB–iDICE fund offers $65 million specifically in Murabaha financing, a Shariah-compliant structure where instead of lending money at interest, the financier purchases the asset you need and resells it to you at an agreed price payable over time.
In practice: you need equipment, software, studio infrastructure, or technology to grow your business.
The fund buys it. You pay back the cost over an agreed period. No interest. No riba. Clean and asset-backed.
And here’s the detail most reports missed: this is not exclusively for Muslim applicants. The fund is open to all eligible Nigerians regardless of background or belief Shariah-compliant financing is an ethical model, not a religious requirement for borrowers. If your business qualifies, you qualify.
Who Can Apply and What You Can Get
The fund is open to tech and creative enterprises across all 36 states and the FCT not just Lagos, not just Abuja.
The iDICE programme was explicitly structured to prevent capital from concentrating in only a few cities, which makes it genuinely different from most Nigerian funding vehicles.
Fund: IsDB–iDICE Murabaha Debt Fund
Total size: $65 million
Financing range: ₦10 million to ₦1 billion per enterprise
Structure: Shariah-compliant Murabaha (asset-backed, no interest)
Eligible sectors: Technology and creative industries (gaming, film, animation, music, fashion, digital media, software, etc.)
Eligible applicants: All Nigerians (no religious requirement)
What it finances: Equipment, technology, creative infrastructure, productive assets needed to scale
Oversight: Bank of Industry + Islamic Development Bank
Apply: idice.boi.ng
The companion fund, the BOI–iDICE $45 million Debt Fund operates alongside this one with a maximum interest rate of 10% per annum, repayment of up to five years, and a moratorium of up to six months.
Together the two funds provide $110 million in debt financing for Nigerian tech and creative businesses the largest combined debt window ever opened for this sector in the country’s history.
Nigeria’s creative and tech sector has a funding problem that isn’t really about a lack of capital.
BOI’s own data from its 2025 creative and digital portfolio shows that among businesses it previously financed, 62% achieved capacity increases above 20%, average revenue grew by 14.3%, and 13% began exporting for the first time.
The businesses are fundable. The returns are real. The bottleneck has always been access getting financing that matches where startups actually are in their growth journey, not where a bank’s credit committee wishes they were.
Murabaha financing solves a specific version of this problem for creative businesses. A film studio needing cameras. A game developer needing servers. A music producer needing recording equipment.
Traditional bank loans attach interest from day one and often require collateral that early-stage creatives don’t have. Murabaha structures the deal around the asset itself, you’re not borrowing money, you’re acquiring something productive, and paying for it over time.
That structure is more aligned with how creative businesses actually generate revenue project by project, release by release, not on a monthly cash flow that looks good on a bank statement.
Vice President Kashim Shettima, Chairman of the iDICE Steering Committee, put the mandate plainly when the programme launched:
“This programme gives young entrepreneurs across the country a real opportunity to build or scale, and we are confident in its ability to reshape early-stage enterprise development.”
▶ APPLY FOR THE IsDB–iDICE DEBT FUND NOW
Are you a tech or creative entrepreneur who has been waiting for a funding window like this? Share this with someone who needs to see it and drop your questions in the comments.