Facebook Twitter LinkedIn RSS
    Trending
    • Nigeria relaunches National Talent Export Programme to unlock $1 trillion global outsourcing market
    • SiBAN identifies five major hurdles to Nigeria’s Blockchain growth
    • Linda Ochugbua named among 50 Most Valuable Personalities in Nigeria’s Digital Economy
    • Four key findings from ICANN’s global survey on gTLDs
    • Experts warn of digital disaster risks in Nigeria without AI governance
    • NCC champions digital transformation in healthcare, commissions E-Health project in Akure
    • PalmPay drives financial literacy in Northern Nigeria with CSR initiative
    • N30 million scholarship up for grabs as InterswitchSPAK 7.0 0pens registrations for students
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn
    ITPulse.com.ngITPulse.com.ng
    • News
    • Interviews
    • Blogs
    • Analysis
    • Opinion
    • Videos
    • Press Releases
    • Pictures
    • Advertise
    ITPulse.com.ngITPulse.com.ng
    Home»News»Nigerian Fintech Startup, Okra gets $1mn pre-seed funding
    News 3 Mins Read

    Nigerian Fintech Startup, Okra gets $1mn pre-seed funding

    mmBy ITPulseApril 27, 2020
    Facebook Twitter WhatsApp Pinterest LinkedIn Reddit Tumblr Email
    KPMG, Fintech, Interswitch, CWG, Banking
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    Okra, a Nigerian fintech platform has secured a $1million pre-seed fundraise from TLcom Capital to strengthen its push to build the infrastructure for Africa’s next wave of fintech innovation. The new investment will help Okra to scale their team and operations as they cater to their growing client base.

    Launched in January 2020, Okra’s “super-connector” creates a secure portal and process to exchange real-time financial information between customers, applications and banks. Currently, developers and organisations in Africa do not have access to real-time banking data, creating large hurdles during the onboarding and verification of customers. Okra is the first in Africa to bridge this gap, delivering a new layer of transparency between organisations and users in the lending, personal & corporate finance and real estate sectors.

    Supported by the strong engineering background of their founding team, Fara Ashiru Jituboh (formerly of Fidelity Investments and Canva) and David Peterside (from UCML Capital and Fashion Map), the company’s technical expertise has already seen them connect with all of Nigeria’s commercial banks as well as the likes of Branch, AIICO Insurance PLC, Travelstart, Bamboo, Renmoney and Swipe (YC) amongst others. With the capacity to onboard new clients in under 24 hours, the startup has seen a 175% rise in demand since March 2020 as more companies digitise their services due to COVID-19 and is seeking to expand across Africa.

    Speaking on the new investment, Fara Ashiru Jituboh, Okra’s CEO/CTO stated: “Our thesis is simple — financial innovation cannot exist without the proper infrastructure, which is data. Essentially, how far the African fintech sector can grow is intrinsically tied to the success of an infrastructure like Okra and with our core market in Nigeria, we’re opening the door to another level of innovation in Africa’s largest market.”

    “There are approximately 125mn banks accounts in Nigeria alone — but over the course of the next two years, we will see that figure rise exponentially, which presents huge opportunities for growth. Our role within this is to deliver ease, speed and transparency to key players within the fintech space so they can get back to driving our continent forward.”

    The $1mn investment in Okra marks TLcom’s first investment in the fintech sector and as part of the deal, Andreata Muforo, Partner at TLcom, will join Okra’s board. Ido Sum, also a Partner at the VC firm, will join as a board observer.

    Andreata Muforo, Partner at TLcom, added “We are always looking for startups with the potential for high value-generation and Okra’s technology provides the foundation for new fintech solutions in Africa for years to come. Equally, it was important for us to know that their leadership had the entrepreneur-led focus which is crucial for execution. Fara’s background was vital here — she’s an expert in over 20 programming languages, worked with multiple Fortune 500 companies and is a great example of why we’re committed to investing in more female founders. She leads by example and we have seen her and David build a really exciting business, in a little under a year, we’re excited to help them grow further”.

    Okra marks the latest company to take advantage of Open Banking initiatives across the globe, which has attracted increasing attention from investors. In the USA, Plaid, which allows users to connect their bank accounts to an app, has been acquired by Visa for $5.3bn since launching in 2013. Yodlee, an American company offering a similar service, secured more than $140mn of funding before being acquired by Envestnet in 2015.

    Okra Fintech startup
    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Telegram Email
    mm
    ITPulse
    • Website
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • LinkedIn

    ITPulse is a wholly information technology communication (ICT) news website, with a special focus on the African continent. The website provides up-to-date biz-tech news, analysis and comprehensive and thorough insight into the continent's ICT terrain

    Related Posts

    Nigeria relaunches National Talent Export Programme to unlock $1 trillion global outsourcing market

    June 1, 2025

    SiBAN identifies five major hurdles to Nigeria’s Blockchain growth

    May 31, 2025

    Linda Ochugbua named among 50 Most Valuable Personalities in Nigeria’s Digital Economy

    May 30, 2025

    Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

    Latest Posts

    Nigeria relaunches National Talent Export Programme to unlock $1 trillion global outsourcing market

    June 1, 2025

    SiBAN identifies five major hurdles to Nigeria’s Blockchain growth

    May 31, 2025

    Linda Ochugbua named among 50 Most Valuable Personalities in Nigeria’s Digital Economy

    May 30, 2025
    About
    About

    Itpulse.com.ng is a wholly information technology communication (ICT) news website, with special focus on the African continent. The website provides up-to-date biz-tech news, analysis and a comprehensive and thorough insight info the continent's ICT terrain.

    Contact us: editorial@itpulse.com.ng

    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn RSS
    Latest Posts

    Nigeria relaunches National Talent Export Programme to unlock $1 trillion global outsourcing market

    June 1, 2025

    SiBAN identifies five major hurdles to Nigeria’s Blockchain growth

    May 31, 2025

    Linda Ochugbua named among 50 Most Valuable Personalities in Nigeria’s Digital Economy

    May 30, 2025
    Popular Posts

    The psychology of design: Using cognitive principles to create intuitive user experiences, By Godwin Udu

    February 24, 2023

    UX design for short attention spans: Crafting experiences for the impatient user, By Godwin Udu

    August 24, 2022

    Four key findings from ICANN’s global survey on gTLDs

    May 30, 2025
    © 2017 - 2025 Itpulse. Designed by Max Excellence.
    • Terms & Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Advertise
    • Contact Us

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.