Okra, a Nigerian fintech platform that is pushing to build Africa’s payment infrastructure for the next wave of fintech innovation, has secured a $1 million pre-seed funding from TLcom Capital.
Founded in January 2020, Okra built the first Application Programming Interface (API) in Africa to retrieve real-time financial data from a bank account to any web or mobile app.
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 and corporate finance, and real estate sectors.
The company plans to use its latest investment from TLcom to recruit more talent and expand its operations as demand for its services grows.
Fara Ashiru Jituboh, CEO and CTO of Okra says that given that there are approximately 125 million bank accounts in Nigeria alone — but over the course of the next two years that figure would rise exponentially, which presents huge opportunities for growth.
“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 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” Jituboh said in a statement BusinessDay received.
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 percent rise in demand since March 2020 as more companies digitise their services due to COVID-19 and are seeking to expand across Africa.
The $1 million 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 venture capital firm, will join as a board observer.
Read more TLcom plans fresh startups investment as Tide Africa fund closes at 71m
“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,” Muforo, said. “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 $5.3 billion 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.
