Every ecosystem needs success stories to motivate future entrepreneurs. In Africa, more specifically in tech, Nigeria is a good student in this regard and Shola Akinlade is part of this generation of entrepreneurs who overcome obstacles, create successful businesses and inspire current and future generations. Let's get to know this software engineer and CEO of Paystack, one of the continent's most promising fintech startups.
A pure product of Nigerian education
While some entrepreneurs have a background in Europe or the United States, Shola Akinlade can proudly boast that his entire education was in his native Nigeria. Born in Lagos, Akinlade attended the Catholic missionary high school for boys, St. Gregory's College. He graduated from secondary school in 2002 and then entered Babcock University, a private coeducational Christian university in Nigeria, where he obtained his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science in 2006.
The following year, this pure product of the Nigerian school began his professional life at Nigerian Breweries PlcHe worked in the country's largest brewery, which is partly owned by Heineken. He worked there as a trainee, then as a manager of the company's database. After two years, he became a little bored and felt he had done his homework. Convinced that he could only find his calling in entrepreneurship, the young Akinlade left the company with dreams and challenges in his head, ready to take on the world of entrepreneurship.
The foundation of Shola Akinlade's future success
In 2009, Akinlade finally took the plunge, determined and bright-eyed. With Mayowa Okegbenla, a young computer science graduate as a partner, and armed with proven skills in software architecture, he co-founded Klein Devorta consulting and software development company dedicated to solving business problems. Its flagship product, Precuriois a simple and effective intranet collaboration platform. This solution is distributed as an open source application, is available in six languages, and is currently used by at least 200,000 organisations in emerging markets in over 40 countries worldwide.
The talent of Shola Akinlade, a young Nigerian who has just graduated but is already very promising, is attracting attention. Several local banks asked him to develop their own tools, opening the door to mobile payments. Working with three of them as a software engineer, the ambitious Akinlade realised the opportunity to develop a way to facilitate payments for businesses in Africa. This realisation marked the beginning of Paystack, the innovative payment platform that now allows Nigerian merchants to receive funds from anywhere in the world.
Founder of Nigeria's leading payment platform
Before officially founding his second company, Shola Akinlade decided to go out into the field to meet with several African businesses to better understand their challenges and needs. He realised that better payment solutions were one of the most important tools these businesses needed to unlock their potential. Based on these fruitful exchanges, he refined his project and set up his "product market fit". And to meet the challenge, he is partnering with Ezra OlubiHe is also a former student of Babcock University and a recognised technology expert.
The pair combined their expertise in IT and technology to set up Paystack, a payment company that allows merchants in Africa to access different payment methods for their customers. All they have to do is log on to Paystack and almost immediately they can get paid via debit cards and other payment methods. And this feat took two years of hard work to get from the idea stage to the finished product.
Importantly, by the time of its official launch in January 2016, Paystack already had a waiting list of about 300 merchants with whom Shola had come into contact during his prospecting period about the needs of his target market. It is undoubtedly due to his deep empathy, his ability to seize opportunities and solve problems that Shola Akinlade was able to enlist these companies at the launch of his startup. Moreover, this breakthrough is proof of the opportunity that such a technology solution presents to African businesses.
CEO of the first Nigerian start-up to join Y Combinator
Before launching his successful company Paystack, in 2014, Shola who had already applied unsuccessfully to Y Combinator with his first company, Klein Devort, decided to try his luck again with Paystack. This time he was invited to Silicon Valley for a 10-minute interview. With his seasoned entrepreneurial skills, strong team and promising business, he was able to convince and succeed in getting Paystack inducted as the first Nigerian company to join the coveted incubator. When he applied to the programme, the man who wants to "set the standard for engineering culture in Africa" had only managed to process 200 $ of transactions per month, yet he went ahead, confident in the viability of his solution. And he was right, because Y Combinator's questions were about other things, such as his ability to build his infrastructure... So he got 120,000 $ of funding from the programme and support in building his infrastructure. And if you're wondering what differentiated Shola's solution from the competition, the visionary explains it very well: "We had made a huge leap from what had existed before (editor's note: payment solutions). Before, it was about seven steps, and now with Paystack, it's about two steps." Simple and equally impressive.
Building on its success, Shola focuses on developing its fintech startup and captures the attention of investors. In October 2020, the American Stripe acquired the company, which had already set up in Ghana in 2018. The transaction amount exceeded $200 million, one of the largest startup acquisitions ever made in Africa. Since then, Paystack has continued to expand in Africa, notably in South Africa and the Ivory Coast, with Akinlade still as CEO.
Akinlade is a tech wunderkind who has spent his entire life in Nigeria. He was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug at an early age and founded Paystack, Nigeria's first innovative fintech, which is now expanding in Africa. With a clear focus on driving the growth of African businesses and enabling new business models, Akinlade has been able to focus on growing his business and seizing the opportunities that have come his way. Today, the world is waiting to see what the next challenge will be for the man who has bridged the ultra-fragmented financial system of Nigeria's payments sector.
