Here are the Billion Dollar Startups Founded by Nigerians and their worth
1. Cityblock Health ($5 billion) | Primary Healthcare, Co-founded by Toyin Ajayi
Dr. Toyin Ajayi, CEO and co-founder, has spent her whole career serving Medicaid patients. Here, she explains what we do, why we do what we do, and what compassionate care is all about.
2• Calendly ($3 billion) | Scheduling
Tope Awotona is the founder and CEO of Calendly, the modern scheduling platform for high-performing teams and individuals accelerating business forward. Tope founded Calendly in 2013 with the vision of simplifying scheduling for everyone without the back-and-forth emails.
3• Flutterwave ($3 billion) | Fintech Founded by Olugbenga Agboola and Iyinoluwa Aboyeji
Flutterwave is a post Series A payments technology company headquartered in San Francisco with operations and offices across Africa and Europe. Flutterwave was launched over two years ago with the goal to build digital payments infrastructure for Africa and enable businesses receive or make any payments across Africa and globally. In two years of operations, Flutterwave has processed over $2B across all product platforms and has been the recipient of several prestigious awards including the “Best Technology Platform” as awarded by The Asian Banker, the “Top 100 Fintech Firms” among others.
4• Andela ($1.5 billion) | Software Engineering Place Network
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji was born in Lagos on March 28, 1991, to Reverend (Mr) and Reverend (Mrs) Aboyeji. He is a Nigerian native of Isin LGA in Kwara State. He attended Primary School at St Saviour’s Primary School Ebute-Metta, Lagos. After earning his secondary school certificate from the Loyola Jesuit College in Abuja in 2007, he continued to the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in Legal Studies.
Iyinoluwa is currently the CEO and General Partner of Fund for Africa’s Future (popularly known as Future Africa), Africa’s largest seed stage investor which has invested millions of dollars into over hundred startups across Africa. Prior to that he co-founded Flutterwave, a billion-dollar global payments platform connecting African businesses and individuals to the global economy and served as its Founding CEO from May 2, 2016, to October 5, 2018. In those years, he led thecompany to become one of the fastest growing payments technology businesses of all time, processing over $2 billion across over 50 million transactions.
In May 2014, Iyinoluwa co-founded Andela, Africa’s largest engineering organization that provides training for African software engineers which has provided training and jobs for over 100,000 African software and tech professionals. The company has received investments from Mark Zuckerberg and Google Ventures, amongst others. Iyinoluwa has also served his country as the youngest member of Nigeria’s Presidential Council on Industrial Policy and Competitiveness and as the Deputy Director General for Madam Obiageli Ezekwesili Campaign for President in 2019. He has been recognized as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree amongst other awards and fellowships.
5• InterSwitch ($1 billion) | Fintech company Founded by Mitchell Elegbe
Before establishing Interswitch in 2002, Mitchell worked with TELNET as the Group Head for Business Development after an impactful time as a Wireline Engineer at Schlumberger.
An alumnus of the IESE/Wharton/CEIBS Global CEO Program, Mitchell is a Bishop Desmond Tutu fellow of the African Leadership Institute. Building a remarkable career on his background as an Electrical/Electronic Engineering graduate from the University of Benin, Nigeria, he has won several awards, including the CNBC/Forbes All African Business Leader (AABLA) for West Africa, and Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
Mitchell currently serves as a Board Member at Endeavor and is reputed as a High Impact Entrepreneurship Enabler.
6• Esusu ($1 billion) | Software company Co-founded by Wemimo Abbey
Esusu, a Nigerian fintech firm, has secured a $130 million Series B funding round to help build the racial wealth gap.
The company announced this on Thursday, breaking the $1 billion valuation barrier as one of the few startups with a black founder to reach unicorn status.
The funding round was led by Softbank, Vision Fund 2 with participation from Jones Feliciano Family Office, Lauder Zinterhofer Family Office, Schusterman Foundation, SoftBank Opportunity Fund, Related Companies, and Wilshire Lane Capital.
The firm said the fund would be used to scale its team and drive growth through product innovation while building the most comprehensive financial health platform in the market.
Abbey Wemimo, the founder of Esusu, said the company was established because of his financial exclusion experience while growing up in an immigrant home.
“We founded Esusu with the vision of using data to bridge the racial wealth gap and create more equitable financial opportunities for low-to-moderate-income households in this country,” Wemimo said.
“By establishing and improving credit scores, we are strengthening financial identities while empowering individuals, families, and communities to meet their long-term financial goals.”
7- Paystack by Shola Akinlade
In 2015, Paystack was co-founded by Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi. The two entrepreneurs founded Paystack which becomes a popular Fintech company in Africa. This platform allows payments to be made online.
Shola Akinlade is a software engineer and a technology expert. He is popularly known for being the CEO of Paystack and was born in Lagos State, Nigeria.
Before he co-founded Paystack, he worked from November 2007 to April 2009 as a database manager for Heineken, a brewing company in Nigeria.
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