iHub Nairobi — Africa's First Tech Hub

iHub opened on 3 March 2010 in Nairobi as Africa's first dedicated technology hub. Founded by Erik Hersman (co-founder of Ushahidi) with seed backing from the Omidyar Network and Hivos, the space offered open co-working, an incubation programme, and a research arm (iHub Research) at affordable membership tiers — democratising access for Nairobi's nascent developer community.

By the time of its 2019 acquisition, iHub had cultivated a community of 16,000 members and supported over 500 companies, of which 450+ trace their origins to the hub. Portfolio companies collectively raised more than $40 million and generated over 40,000 jobs across East Africa (CcHUB press release, September 2019).

In September 2019, Co-Creation Hub (CcHUB) — Nigeria's leading tech incubator, backed by USAID and the Mastercard Foundation — acquired iHub, merging the two organisations into a pan-African network spanning Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, and Namibia. In November 2024, iHub's new headquarters opened at the Jahazi Building, 154 James Gichuru Road, Lavington, Nairobi.

iHub's core innovation was demonstrating that a community-driven, open-access model — deliberately positioned between an NGO and a business — could catalyse a startup ecosystem in a developing-economy city. It became the template for Africa's subsequent tech hub boom.

Read the full analysis: https://ihub.co.ke/