Nigerian startup launches social platform for African writers

Nigerian startup InstaNovella has launched a social community to help African writers connect with readers and opportunities to monetise their skills.

Co-founded in June 2020 by Dandy Jackson Chukwudi and Awaji-Itimikpang Abadi, who had run a Facebook community of writers that reached 2.1 million members, InstaNovella is aiming to create social communities around stories from both amateur and established writers in Africa.

“Africa is growing and we need to be entertained. Some people look for where to display their talents in writing, but have no notable place for that, and that is why InstaNovella is here,” Chukwudi told Disrupt Africa.

The platform helps Africans publish and read stories, and at the same time interact with each other. It also hopes to help writers monetise, and is attempting to secure partnership deals with companies that make films. Currently it monetises through advertising.

“We fill the reading gap. The reading of books in Africa has been declining, and we want to keep this in check. To the best of my knowledge, there hasn’t been an0y social network platform for reading and writing stories in Africa – we have no competitor,” Chukwudi said.

InstaNovella, which is hoping to secure early-stage funding, claims to already have 100,000 users, making it the “number one reading platform in Africa”.