TECH - NIGERIA'S NEW OIL

• Meet some of Nigeria’s leading techpreneurs

With the drastic shift from agrarian, industrial and information ages, the future is now tied to providing knowledge-based solutions to practical problems in education, medicine, commerce and industry, environment and other critical areas of human endeavour. Almost on a daily basis in many countries, a new set of young entrepreneurs is emerging to seize the space. Without building factories, they simply deploy IT and basic engineering to create stupendous wealth with less manual efforts while at the same time impacting lives on universal scale. Remarkably, Nigeria is not left out of this global revolution. In fact, on the continent, Nigeria’s young men and women are taking the lead in this brave new world.

With 62,573, United States leads the way in the number of startups per country. But with 713, Nigeria ranks number 16 globally and is above countries like Sweden (663), China (589), Japan (524) and South Africa (436). The value of share and that of unicorns, which speak to the financials of these startups are of course, much lower in Nigeria. With a population of around 8.5 million, Israel also has the largest number of startups per capita in the world. But what the ranking of Nigeria regarding the number of startups shows is the potential for growth in a sector that started just about 12 years ago.

Today, THISDAY begins to profile some of these change agents, who represent the future of Nigeria in the tech world…


Promoting a healthy digital economy takes efforts and with the potentials being demonstrated, government (at all levels) must support these players through a more robust regulatory environment. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has taken the lead in this direction with the establishment of a Tech Sandbox in 2019. Last year, CBN followed up with the release of a draft framework. The idea is for a more formalised process for firms and startups to conduct live tests of all-new, innovative products, services, delivery channels or business models. The CBN must be commended for being forward-thinking!

Meanwhile, the venture capital (VC) scene across the African continent has consistently grown, with an influx of funding from local and international investors reaching unprecedented heights in recent years. From a meagre $400 million raised by African startups in 2015, no less than $2 billion came into the continent in 2019, according to Africa-focused fund Partech Africa.

And Nigeria has consistently remained the top destination followed by Kenya, Egypt and South Africa in that order.

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It is very remarkable that within just a decade of the knowledge economy in the country, many of Nigeria’s young men and women have broken through barriers to emerge very quickly with Apps and services not only for the Nigerian market but also for the continent. Many have also extended their reach beyond the continent and are now global players. The enduring lesson from their endeavour is that with greater application of knowledge, things much smarter, much more efficiently, and much more productively can be done.

https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2021/03/28/tech-nigerias-new-oil/

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji

With $15 million seed capital, Flutterwave co-founded by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji recently raised $170 million and currently has $1 billion valuation. Aboyeji, who became the CEO of Flutterwave in 2017 led the company in four years using its payment platform to empower people across the continent to execute business on global scale, processing in the process billions of dollars in transactions. Prior to Flutterwave, Aboyeji had co-founded Andela, with a pool of more than a thousand software engineers across the continent. Aboyeji now heads Fund for Africa’s Future where he spends time helping founders, philanthropists and investors from around the world to identify passionate and result-oriented entrepreneurs. Winner of several awards, Aboyeji also sits on the board of several institutions including Paris’ Share Africa Project, Rainbow Educational Services Limited and Filmo Realty. “We’re moving from a globalised economy to a distributed economy. This means that anyone can build anything from anywhere in the world. This requires an Africa that’s structured and thinking differently about the global economy,” says Aboyeji who is 30 today.

Odunayo Eweniyi

A serial entrepreneur, Odunayo Eweniyi co-founded pushcv.com and is now the Chief Operating Officer of PiggyVest which she also co-founded. Pushcv.com is one of the largest job sites in Africa reputed with the biggest database of pre-screened candidates. A first class graduate of Computer Engineering from Covenant University in Lagos, Eweniyi through Piggyvest enables Nigerian debit cardholders to save little amounts of money by automating the process into daily, weekly, or monthly. These individuals are then allowed to withdraw for free on some set withdrawal dates. It is a testimony to its growth trajectory that Piggyvest is already in partnership with two Microfinance banks.
In 2019, Eweniyi was named one of Forbes Africa 30 under 30 in Technology and one of 30 Quartz Africa Innovators same year. She sits on the advisory board of TrainFuture, an Education Technology company based in Switzerland, as well as the Gender Lens Acceleration Best Practices Initiative, a collaborative effort of Village Capital, US and the International Finance Corporation (IFC)’s Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (WeFi).

Sim Shagaya

After the success of Konga Store and DealDey, both of which he founded, Sim Shagaya in 2019 went into another startup, uLesson which has already secured over $3.1 million in funding from TLcom Capital. uLesson is currently the leading edtech (Education Technology) startup company for digitalized learning. Sim graduated from George Washington University, Washington DC and holds a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Electrical Engineering. He proceeded to obtain a Master of Science degree in Engineering Management from Dartmouth College and later obtained an MBA from Harvard University in 2003.

Aimed at helping secondary school students in Nigeria to prepare for higher education, uLesson, is working on bridging the knowledge gap for K-7 to K-12 students across Africa by delivering affordable, high-quality and accessible education, using technology. Africa, according to Shagaya, “is not one place. Different needs, cultures, and curricula mean that uLesson has to carefully and deliberately think about how to design products and distribution channels to serve such a vast market. Almost daily we receive emails from families across the continent asking us to make services available to them. And in 2021, we will.”

Yanmo Omorogbe

Omorogbe is the Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer at Bamboo. Before
founding Bamboo, she was an Investment Associate at the African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM). The mission of the startup is to give Nigerians a means for growing and earning returns on their investments. Bamboo’s app gives users access to buy and sell stocks of about 3,000 companies. The company partners with DriveWealth LLC, a US brokerage firm, to facilitate its trades.

Ire Aderinokun

Ire Aderinokun is currently the Co-founder, Chief Operating Officer and Vice President, Engineering of BuyCoins, a cryptocurrency exchange for Africa. She is a Google Expert, specialising in the core frontend technologies HTML, CSS, and Javascript, but is passionate about all aspects of technology.

Olugbenga Agboola

Prior to cofounding Flutterwave, Olugbenga Agboola contributed to the development of fintech solutions at several tech companies and financial institutions such as PayPal, Standard Bank, among others. Established in 2016 by a team of engineers, ex-bankers, and entrepreneurs, Flutterwave provides a seamless and easy payment system to individuals, banks, merchants, organizations, etc. Their payment solution connects Africa to the global economy by building a fintech infrastructure that can make and accept any currency anywhere within and across the continent.

Founded essentially to connect all payment types in the continent and bring a single-use payment solution, Flutterwave has expanded to 15 countries, including the United Kingdom. With headquarters in San Francisco, USA, and offices in Lagos-Nigeria, Johannesburg-South Africa, Accra-Ghana, and Nairobi-Kenya, Flutterwave has over 50 banks partnering with them across Africa. In 2019 alone, the fintech processed 107 million transactions worth $5.4 billion. The company has also raised over $55 million in equity from a long list of top VCs (Venture Capitalists), including Y-Combinator, Visa Ventures, Fintech (Financial Technology) Collective, Endeavor, Mastercard, Golden Palm Investments etc.
A software engineer with a master’s degree in information technology security and behavioral engineering, Agboola is positioning Flutterwave as a global brand with Nigerian origin.


Yele Bademosi

Bademosi is the CEO and Co-Founder of Bundle, the Africa-focused social payments app for cash and crypto. He is focused on developing the blockchain ecosystem in Africa, accelerating Africa’s transition into a sustainable and developed economy by leveraging capital, innovation and policy. He is a Founding Partner at Microtraction, which funds Africa’s most remarkable teams at early-stage startups across multiple sectors including finance and cryptocurrency.

Up Nigeria!

God bless Nigeria.

And some useless low self-esteem and inferiority complex losers are committing suicide over a meaningless twitter office in ghana with 11 ghost workers..

God Bless Nigeria

The electric car produced by a sokoto born was handwork of ipob terrorist right?

NigeriaIsZOO:
Wake me up when Fulanis start contributing in anything meaningful in Nigeria. This is the more reason why Southern Nigeria needs to stay on their own so they can maximize their potentials without distractions by primitive barbarians.

Anambra1tson you are watching the lists if ipob terrorist is there hell no he shock you.

For paper or reality

Very sure that my people will dominate also, i am a very proud yoruba man
Where are nyamiris, sorry i don forget shey dis one no be drug pushing business, nah crime dey their blood and nothing more
God bless yoruba nation
Fvck nigeria

Igbos are lagging behind in tech world.

Omo na Ewedu Republic dominated the list.

God really bless Nigeria but Leadership, Religion and Tribalism have damaged the country and her people.

Yoruba= Afonja or Ewedu Republic

Igbo= Potopoto Republic

Hausa/Fulani= Cow Federation.

Imagine names wey una dey call una selves.

Japa

hah comedians, is your tech startup in inventing electricity

Tech Startus ko

Yorfra exit ni

From all of us at vulturebbqrillz we thank you our darling daddy for creating the enabling environment for this to happen. We appreciate all the wonderful things you are doing in the country, As president of the Nigerian association of BMC zombies we applaud this great achievement
Sai Baba
Sai 4 + 4

Quantity or quality?

North dey forbid this kind list since it's about brain and government won't give freebies

plaindealer:
And some useless low self-esteem and inferiority complex losers are committing suicide over a meaningless twitter office in ghana with 11 ghost workers..

God Bless Nigeria

Ah aaaah I'm not surprised ur still in pain

Solsix:
Igbos are lagging behind in tech world.

Honestly

To whom it may concern:

This news is based on falsehood to please some useless charlatans defending this hopeless, visionless, wicked, poverty-stricken, fanatical, and terrorist government of that fulani man that migrated from Sudan.

That it was twisted with few examples of individuals does not give it any credibility as to the opinion being held.
What impact does this news make with the current exchange of dollar to naira, or the prices of staple foods in the overt market?

Nonesense and Buhari

Heffalump:
To whom it may concern:

This news is based on falsehood to please some useless charlatans defending this hopeless, visionless, wicked, poverty-stricken, fanatical, and terrorist government of that fulani man that migrated from Sudan.

That it was twisted with few examples of individuals does not give it any credibility as to the opinion being held.
What impact does this news make with the current exchange of dollar to naira, or the prices of staple foods in the overt market?

Nonesense and Buhari

What's new?

Are we supposed to be surprised and shocked that Igbos are hateful, bitter, bigoted, frustrated, and anti-Nigerian?

In fact, no ipobian post is complete without hatred, bitterness, tribalism, anger, frustration and madness.

A lot of Nigerians don't really understand what startup is and why very few Igbos are publicly known. Many Yorubas really don't know why because they are not capitalistic or enterprising naturally or raised to be. Yorubas from the time of Awolowo embrace PLC, corporation, partnership or cloud founding.

Now, a startup is when an individual but usually a group of individuals create an app or tech, then...very important you get this, then bring in a seed, angel investor or venture capital firm to help them financially. What that means is the venture capital firm now owns at least 50% of the startup in exchange for equity. Yorubas having been raised in the era of PLC and corporations, where people pull funds to fund an investment, may find it attractive, and that's why you see a lot of yorubas in popular startups.

If you look at most of these yorubas in startsup even those startups worth millions of dollars, they look very hungry and nothing to show for it, just on paper. Go and research. Why? Because all that money is in the valuation of the startup, held and controlled by the seed/angel investor or venture capital(VC) firm, who just pay them chicken change every year to promote them. The reason why you are hearing about them is because the investors and VC firm are promoting them. Basically, the venture capital firm in essence, own and run the company because they tell you what and what you cannot do.

Now, Igbos having been raised in a capitalist economy, will rather roll out his or her own startup by getting capital from bank even if it's a collateral but will never bring in a venture capital or investors for a stake in the company. An Igbo will rather suffer and build for 15-20yrs with progress growth based on his little capital than bringing in investors to take 50% of his sweat and most importantly to tell him what and what he cannot do. So, because he is starting small with little capital and no major VC or investor to promote him, you may not hear his name like these yorubas who have promoters in exchange for equity.

So, it's important you understand the dynamics of the industry or you will be misled by those saying that Yorubas dominate.

oluwazt:
A lot of Nigerians don't really understand what startup is and why very few Igbos are publicly known. Many Yorubas really don't know why because they are not capitalistic or enterprising naturally or raised to be. Yorubas from the time of Awolowo embrace PLC, corporation, partnership or cloud founding.

Now, a startup is when an individual but usually a group of individuals create an app or tech, then...very important you get this, then bring in a seed, angel investor or venture capital firm to help them financially. What that means is the venture capital firm now owns at least 50% of the startup in exchange for equity. Yorubas having been raised in the era of PLC and corporations, where people pull funds to fund an investment, may find it attractive, and that's why you see a lot of yorubas in popular startups.

If you look at most of these yorubas in startsup even those startups worth millions of dollars, they look very hungry and nothing to show for it, just on paper. Go and research. Why? Because all that money is in the valuation of the startup, held and controlled by the seed/angel investor or venture capital(VC) firm, who just pay them chicken change every year to promote them. The reason why you are hearing about them is because the investors and VC firm are promoting them. Basically, the venture capital firm in essence, own and run the company because they tell you what and what you cannot do.

Now, Igbos having been raised in a capitalist economy, will rather roll out his or her own startup by getting capital from bank even if it's a collateral but will never bring in a venture capital or investors for a stake in the company. An Igbo will rather suffer and build for 15-20yrs with progress growth based on his little capital than bringing in investors to take 50% of his sweat and most importantly to tell him what and what he cannot do. So, because he is starting small with little capital and no major VC or investor to promote him, you may not hear his name like these yorubas who have promoters in exchange for equity.

So, it's important you understand the dynamics of the industry or you will be misled by those saying that Yorubas dominate.

Going with your backward, ignorant and bankrupt theory and understanding of TECH startups and investors, the founders of Facebook, Google, Apple and all the founders of the TECH companies doing IPOs and becoming billionaires overnight should not be the billionaires and they should not be the ones getting rich, it's the investors that should be billionaires laughing to the bank.

TECH investors put up seed money for a stake or part of the future earnings or worth of the TECH companies, it's a percentage, never ownership, or anywhere close to controlling interests.

Instead of spewing ignorance on the internet just to stroke your backward and ignorant tribal ego, read and educate yourself about TECH and TECH funding.

I hope and pray that your kind of mentality is not the dominant mentality within the igbo community because it's sadly very ignorant, unintelligent, and dangerously bankrupt.

What an embarrassment.









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