This special live podcast session was recorded at Ventures Park, Lagos, during Ventures Platform’s in-person mixer for portfolio founders on July 27, 2024 -- My guest today is Deepankar Rustagi, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and one of the sharpest minds in Nigeria’s B2B commerce space. I’ve known Deepankar for over seven years, going back to his days at Vconnect. He was one of the very first guests on this podcast in 2017, where we discussed his journey - how he started, what led to the company ...
Feb 21, 2025•22 min•Season 5Ep. 86
This season of Building the Future was made possible by Moniepoint My guest today is Dare Okoudjou, Founder & CEO of Onafriq (formerly known as MFS Africa). Dare has built a long-running startup success streak on the continent, having started the business over a decade ago to become a multimillion dollar revenue company today. Onafriq is building a “network of networks” to enable payments interoperability across the continent. After finding product-market fit, the company went through rapid ...
Jul 24, 2024•51 min•Season 5Ep. 85
This season of Building the Future was made possible by Moniepoint My guest today is Uka Eje, the co-founder and CEO of ThriveAgric. I've known Uka since 2017, when he and his co-founder, Ayo, received their first institutional investment from Ventures Platform. ThriveAgric empowers nearly one million smallholder farmers on the continent with technology, credit, and access-to-market. The company started as an idea between two classmates, and their journey so far has involved overcoming operation...
Jul 17, 2024•39 min•Season 5Ep. 84
This season of Building the Future was made possible by Moniepoint My guest today is Deepankar Rustagi, a seasoned tech entrepreneur in Nigeria. I've known Deepankar for over 7 years, dating back to his days at Vconnect. He was one of the first entrepreneurs featured on this podcast—check out episode 8 to hear about his journey from Nigeria to India and back, where he initially worked for Tolaram Group before founding Vconnect. In this episode, we continue Deepankar's story, focusing on his next...
Jul 10, 2024•46 min•Season 5Ep. 83
This season of Building the Future was made possible by Moniepoint My guest today is Elo Umeh, founder and CEO of Terragon Group, a leading data and marketing cloud company in Africa. I've known Elo personally for some time; his leadership at Terragon has been transformative. Founded in 2009, Terragon initially focused on mobile websites and launched Twinpine, a mobile ad network, in 2012. Under Elo's guidance, Terragon now offers marketing automation, customer data platforms, and enterprise ins...
Jul 03, 2024•33 min•Season 5Ep. 82
This season of Building the Future was made possible by Moniepoint My guest today is Daniel Yu, founder and CEO of Wasoko, a B2B e-commerce platform serving over 220,000 informal retailers across the continent. The first time I saw Daniel, he was playing the keyboard as part of a live band in Nairobi. Since then, we've met at more serious events where we've shared banter about pan-African expansion philosophies for startups on the continent. Daniel is a true global citizen, having worked in or t...
Jun 26, 2024•41 min•Season 5Ep. 81
This season of Building the Future was made possible by Moniepoint My guest today is Bode Abifarin, one of the leading startup operators I know on the continent. I first met Bode in 2017 when she had just joined Flutterwave, where she served as Chief Operating Officer. I've been continually impressed by Bode’s unique ability to blend operational dexterity with high level strategic thinking. Bode has a background in consulting for KPMG and worked closely with banks in Nigeria to develop and artic...
Jun 19, 2024•40 min•Season 5Ep. 80
This season of Building the Future was made possible by Moniepoint My guest today is Mark Straub, founder & CEO of Smile ID. Smile ID is building identity verification infrastructure for businesses in Africa. Mark and I were connected by a mutual friend, but I’ve always been fascinated by his transition from being a venture investor to becoming a startup founder — especially considering that I made the transition in the other direction. With Smile ID, Mark is building an important layer of t...
Jun 12, 2024•54 min•Season 5Ep. 79
My guest today is Anu Adedoyin-Adasolum, the co-founder and CEO of Sabi. Sabi is a B2B e-commerce startup that provides digital infrastructure to Africa's informal economy. In October 2023, they announced reaching $1B annual GMV. I've always been fascinated by Sabi, especially their ability to bring seemingly disjointed and complex pieces together in a connected business model. In this episode, we discussed: The unique challenges and differentiation strategies of operating a B2B e-commerce platf...
Jun 05, 2024•51 min•Season 5Ep. 78
My guest today is Shola Akinlade. I met Shola in 2016, while he and his co-founder, Ezra, were at the YC accelerator program. It was the beginning of their Paystack journey, and even then, I was struck by his clarity of thought and radical focus on product development. Today, Paystack has scaled to seven markets and is responsible for over 40x the value processed online in Nigeria at the time of their founding. Their $200M+ acquisition by Stripe marked a significant milestone for the tech ecosys...
May 29, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 5Ep. 77
My guest today is Tosin Eniolorunda, CEO and co-founder of Moniepoint. I met Tosin in Kigali at the Africa Tech Summit in 2020, just before the world went into lockdown. We spent hours discussing the offline distribution of fintech products after our introduction. Since then, I've had the opportunity to be an investor, C-level executive, and board observer at Moniepoint. This has allowed me to understand the company from both external and internal perspectives. In this episode, you'll get a glim...
May 22, 2024•50 min•Season 5Ep. 76
It's been a while. I haven't held the podcast mic for a long time. I must admit, I'm a bit rusty. I’m overwhelmed by the advancements in the podcast space since my sabbatical. The African tech ecosystem has also grown in leaps and bounds, with its fair share of troughs too. And I'm still privileged to be an active participating observer in it. Several people have asked me privately and publicly when I'm restarting the podcast. I've attributed the delay to my busy schedule, but I'm more eager to ...
May 14, 2024•29 min•Season 5Ep. 75
My guest today is Sangu Delle. Sangu is an entrepreneur, an investor, author, and someone who is deeply rooted in Pan-African ideology. His latest book Making the futures: Young entrepreneurs in a dynamic Africa explored similar themes and topics that I've often explore on this podcast. So it's not surprising that we started the conversation in this episode talking about the book. We discussed the challenges and opportunities of building a business in Africa. We also deep-dived into the competit...
Dec 04, 2020•1 hr•Season 4Ep. 74
My guest today is Andrew Alli. Andrew is a real-life and virtual mentor to a lot of investment professionals in Africa. He is the Partner and Group CEO at Southbridge a pan-African financial advisory firm. Before then, he was the president and CEO of the Africa Finance Corporation, where he was responsible for over $4,5 billion of investments in 30 countries. Andrew's career is an inspiration and signpost to upcoming African investors like me, and it was a real pleasure to deep dive into how he ...
Oct 08, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Season 4Ep. 73
My guest today is Eloho Gihan-Mbelu; she is the founding Managing Director & CEO of Endeavor Nigeria. Endeavor is a mission-oriented, global organisation that is supporting high-impact entrepreneurship in close to 40 underserved markets across the world. Eloho and I got introduced a few years ago when she started her role with Endeavor Nigeria, and I find her intellectual honesty very refreshing. You can get more of her thoughts on her twitter handle @elohoGM. In this episode, we discussed h...
Oct 01, 2020•54 min•Season 4Ep. 72
My guest today is Tokunbo Ishmael. She's the co-founder and Managing Director of Alitheia Capital, an African focussed PE and VC firm. Alitheia Capital investments include businesses that enable the provision of financial services to the unbanked, and underbanked through traditional and branchless banking models. Alitheia Capital focuses on doing social good and also having a good return on investment. Tokunbo Ishmael is an alumnus of London Business School, and the University of London, she's a...
Sep 22, 2020•42 min•Season 4Ep. 71
My guest today is Eric Idiahi. Eric is the co-founder and partner at Verod Capital, a private equity firm based out of Lagos Nigeria. Verod is one of the top PE firms in the continent with a significant number of successful exits as well as admirable money multiples record from their previous fund. Eric is someone I've known from a distance, so when we met at a dinner late last year I invited him to be a guest on this podcast and he graciously obliged. In this episode, we discussed how he and hi...
Sep 15, 2020•47 min•Season 4Ep. 70
My guest today is Nnena. Nnena is a Principal at Digame Investment, a growth capital investment firm that back tech-enabled businesses in Africa. Their portfolio companies include GetSmarter an online education company based in Cape Town and London that work some of the top global universities to offer premium online short courses to working professionals around the world. GetSmarter was acquired by 2U in 2017 for $103m, demonstrating that the possibilities of a successful exit. We talked about ...
Sep 08, 2020•38 min•Season 4Ep. 69
This is the second part of my conversation with Yele Bademosi, you can listen to the first part of this conversation in the last episode of this podcast series. Apart from being the founding partner at Microtraction, Yele is also the founder and CEO of Bundle a social application for cash and cryptocurrency transactions. Yele is the first person I go-to for any question I have on blockchain and cryptocurrency. In this episode, Yele and I discussed his previous role as a director at Binance LB an...
Sep 01, 2020•37 min•Season 4Ep. 68
My guest today is Yele Bademosi. Yele is the founder of Microtraction, an angel investment platform that funds Africa’s technology entrepreneurs in their early stage. Microtraction is one of the most active pre-seed investment firms in Nigeria. Yele and I have known each other for some time. We’ve worked together closely in the past, when he became the first person to join my previous company, Starta, barely a few weeks after it was founded in late 2015. It is quite fitting that Yele is the firs...
Aug 25, 2020•41 min•Season 4Ep. 67
Venture-backed startups are disrupting existing business models, redefining market potentials and creating new verticals. In Africa, startups are finding innovative models for addressing underserved market segments, repurposing under-utilised resources and facilitating efficiencies and visibilities where none exists before. These companies have catalysed wider conversations, policies and actions from both government and non-governmental institutions on how to leverage democratised access to tech...
Aug 18, 2020•5 min
We have now come to the end of season 3! It has been such an exciting journey, one I hope you enjoyed as well. Please listen to my review of the season, what you can expect from next season and when we will be returning.
Mar 04, 2019•4 min
Steve Grin is the Managing Partner at Lateral Capital, a firm that invests in early and growth stage opportunities in sub-Saharan Africa. Their Fund backs technology-enabled businesses that profitably solve significant pain points across critical infrastructure verticals: financial services, energy, healthcare, and education. Steven is a seasoned entrepreneur and investment professional with twenty years of experience investing as a principal and fund manager across the globe. He has extensive e...
Feb 04, 2019•57 min•Season 3Ep. 66
Dustyn Winder is the co-founder and managing partner at Akili.Vc Akili is a pre-seed to Series A fund tailored for Africa. Their philosophy is based on the belief that there are very interesting problems that are often difficult for entrepreneurs to execute on, whether because they are hidden inside corporations, neglected in disaffected communities, or in geographies that present different challenges than traditional startup markets. Thus they are bringing the Prehype model (an organization Aki...
Jan 28, 2019•37 min•Season 3Ep. 65
Adam Grunewald is the co-founder and CEO of Lynk, a platform designed to provide technology-based solutions for the massive informal labour sectors in Kenya. Adam has worked at Google as a project manager on new and emerging projects in the United States and Kenya. Driven by the urge to create a reliable employment system for manual workers in Kenya, he created Lynk in late 2015. Lynk has raised $1m in funding and is currently fundraising. In this episode you’ll learn: Adam’s love for Kenya and ...
Jan 21, 2019•1 hr 11 min•Season 3Ep. 64
Ekechi Nwokah is the CEO and founder at mines.io, a startup that provides technology infrastructure which enable local institutions such as banks, mobile phone operators, retailers in emerging market to offer credit to their customers. Mines use a combination of big data, AI and Machine learning algorithm to provide on-demand credit ratings and decision-making where there is no existing credit history. In 2018, Mines raised $13 million Series A funding from several VC within and outside Africa. ...
Jan 14, 2019•1 hr 29 min•Season 3Ep. 63
Tunde Leye is the author of four novels, including his latest: Afonja, The Rise. He began his writing as a blogger during his mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). Tunde ran this blog for three years during which he wrote seven series including wildly popular Finding Hubby. He studied Computer Science at the University of Lagos and tried numerous things including music and lecturing. In this episode you’ll learn: The process of publishing books in Nigeria, challenges and opportunities T...
Jan 07, 2019•1 hr 38 min•Season 3Ep. 62
Abisoye Ajayi-Akinfolarin is the founder of Pearls Africa Foundation. Pearls Africa Foundation is a non-governmental organization that provides young girls living in underserved communities through training in technology, skill acquisitions and mentorship. One of their projects, “GirlsCoding” has reached more than 400 beneficiaries, including girls from orphanages and correctional homes, in addition to young women fleeing the Boko Haram insurgency. Abisoye was recently named “CNN Hero of the Yea...
Dec 17, 2018•1 hr 34 min•Season 3Ep. 61
Nnamdi Azodo is a product owner at ALAT by Wema bank, Africa’s first mobile-only bank. ALAT is a fully digital bank in Nigeria, designed to help customers save more. A savings account can totally be opened in 5 minutes with a debit card delivered. To open an ALAT account, you need your BVN, a phone number, email address and a few documents. Nnamdi joined Wema Bank as a youth corps member during his mandatory 1 year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) period. After his service, he stayed on in th...
Dec 10, 2018•1 hr 1 min•Season 3Ep. 60
Olumide Soyombo is the Co-Founder of BlueChip Technologies. BlueChip Technologies is a systems integrator specialized in Data Warehousing, Analytics and Business Intelligence Solutions. Olumide is also the co-founder at Leadpath Nigeria, a seed capital fund that specializes in providing short, medium and long-term funding to small and medium-sized start-up businesses. They have invested in companies like Paystack, Fashpa, Piggybank among others. He is a systems engineering graduate from the Univ...
Dec 03, 2018•1 hr 4 min•Season 3Ep. 59
