Imagine a startup that grows revenue from ₦1.5 billion in 2023 to ₦3 billion in 2024. Impressive, right? Now convert that to dollars. At ₦500/$, ₦1.5B = $3M. At ₦1,500/$, ₦3B = $2M. Despite doubling revenue in Naira terms, yet your USD valuation dropped significantly. This is what most Nigerian startups are facing. Growth on paper, but reduced perceived value to global investors. Someone may want to ask: why do Nigerian startups care about their valuation in dollar? Here’s why: Startups in Nigeria are like locally manufactured products designed for international export. Just like a manufacturer exporting palm oil abroad must watch the global oil price, Nigerian startups must watch the USD—because it’s the scoreboard the world reads. They may be built in Lagos, but from day one, they are designed to think globally. Why? Because investors speak one language—USD and the true measure of scale, relevance, and investment—in today’s venture world—is denominated in dollars, not Naira. To investors, a business valued in Naira is like a book written in an unknown script. If the dollar value doesn’t rise, investors don’t care how hard you’re working. That’s why many Nigerian startup founders incorporate abroad. It’s not betrayal—it’s strategy. And yes even though Nigeria’s startups are locally made. But they are globally pitched. This is why naira devaluation hits startups that pick Nigeria as their primary market so hard. A startup that earns ₦3 billion in 2025 might appear less valuable than when it earned ₦1.5 billion in 2023. Simply because the exchange rate doubled from ₦805/$ to ₦1,600/$. Yesterday my professor, Ndubuisi Ekekwe showed us that foreign exchange instability in Nigeria is killing investor confidence(link to post in the comment section). If you Invest $1M today in a Nigerian startup, your returns in 3 years might have reduced by half, just because of currency losses. So what do investors do? They pause. They delay. They walk away. As that happen, Nigerian innovation suffers. We need national focus on FX stability. Not just for imports—but for innovation. Because no matter how great your tech is, if the economics don’t work, the cheque never gets signed.