Africa on the Rise: Top 50 Urban Influencers to Watch in 2024 by UrbanGeekz
Highlighting African Tech Pillars: Influential Founders and CEOs Reshaping the Digital Landscape
An array of visionary entrepreneurs is revolutionizing the tech industry across Africa. Among these pioneers, Shola Akinlade, Hannah Subaiyi, Fara Ashiru Jituboh, Omar Cisse, and Michelle Elegbe stand out for their groundbreaking contributions.
Shola Akinlade: Revolutionizing Online Payments
As the founder and CEO of Paystack, Shola Akinlade has been instrumental in enhancing online payments across Africa. A Nigerian software engineer, Akinlade co-founded Paystack in 2016 with his schoolmate, Ezra Olubi. The company offers payment solutions to businesses, enabling them to accept various payment methods, such as debit and credit cards, bank transfers, and mobile money. After being accepted into the renowned Y Combinator accelerator program in November 2015, Paystack gained a prominent position within Africa's tech community. The company's significant success culminated in its acquisition by Stripe, a global online payment processing company, in October 2020.
Hannah Subaiyi: Championing African Investment
Hannah is a co-founder of two influential African investment clubs: Dazzle Angels, the first women-led tech club investing in female-led tech businesses, and DIA, the first DRC impact investment club in the country. With a background in investment banking and portfolio management, Subaiyi brings valuable expertise to her role as a partner at Launch Africa Ventures, focusing on frontier markets and female founders. Her passion for African investments extends to advising African investment funds and her position as a non-executive director of ABAN, the African Business Angel Network. Having earned degrees from HEC Paris Business School and Paris I - La Sorbonne Law School, Subaiyi was recognized as a 2023 Desmond Tutu Fellow and honored with several prestigious awards in impact investing.
Fara Ashiru Jituboh: Innovating Financial Solutions
A tech whiz with over 20 programming languages under her belt, Fara Ashiru Jituboh founded Okra, a Nigerian fintech platform that connects customer accounts to banking apps and provides real-time financial information. Okra's business model revolves around the product fees it earns when customers connect their bank accounts to third-party applications using the platform. Launched in 2019, the startup was oversubscribed within six months and managed to raise a $1 million seed round despite the challenges posed by the pandemic. Jituboh, who grew up in the United States and spent a year in Nigeria as a teenager, recognized the potential of Nigeria as a hub for innovative solutions to solve significant problems. After giving birth to her son, she noticed that none of her banking applications worked in Nigeria due to the lack of connections to local apps, and Okra was born as a result.
Omar Cisse: Leading Mobile Payments
Omar Cisse, a young Senegalese entrepreneur, founded InTouch in 2014 to address the growing need for mobile payment solutions in Africa. The company now leads the industry, with partnerships with Total, Orange, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. As a digital platform bringing together various payment solutions, InTouch has onboarded over 2,000 corporate clients, a network of 50,000 terminals, and is operational in more than 14 countries. InTouch raised €10 million in 2017, making it the largest investment raised by any francophone African startup. In 2019, the company facilitated 30 million transactions, totaling over €580 million. With projections to establish a network of partners in every African country by 2025, InTouch continues to solidify its position as a frontrunner in mobile payments.
Michelle Elegbe: Driving Payment Innovation
Founder and CEO of Interswitch, an influential digital payments and commerce company, Michelle Elegbe has led the firm to remarkable growth and diversification over the past two decades. Deloitte recognized Interswitch in 2014 as 'Africa's fastest-growing technology business.' Elegbe, a University of Benin graduate and Wharton Global CEO Program alumnus, first envisioned revolutionizing Nigeria's payment systems upon his return from Scotland, where he observed the struggles to access cash. As Africa's continent-wide trailblazer in digital payments, Elegbe has amassed numerous awards, including the 2019 African Banker Icon and the 2023 EY West African Entrepreneur of the Year. Elegbe is actively involved in mentoring young entrepreneurs as a member of the board of Endeavor Nigeria.
While the UrbanGeekz 50 2024 list of top African tech entrepreneurs was not fully detailed in the search results, these highlighted entrepreneurs represent the diverse talent and innovation shaping the African tech landscape. Other notable figures in African tech entrepreneurship, such as Kunbi Tinuoye, founder of UrbanGeekz, and the entrepreneurs behind Kofa Technologies, a Ghanaian clean-tech startup focused on battery swapping technology, continue to make significant strides in fostering innovation within the continent.
- The innovative contributions of technology entrepreneurs are transforming various industries across the world, with notable examples in Africa.
- Shola Akinlade's fintech startup, Paystack, enhances online payments for businesses in Africa, having been acquired by Stripe in 2020.
- Hannah Subaiyi is a champion for African investments, co-founding Dazzle Angels and DIA, while working as a partner at Launch Africa Ventures.
- Fara Ashiru Jituboh revolutionized financial solutions in Nigeria with Okra, a fintech platform that connects customer accounts to banking apps.
- Omar Cisse leads InTouch, a mobile payment solution company that partners with major corporations in over 14 countries across Africa.
- Michelle Elegbe, founder of Interswitch, has driven payment innovation on the continent and is recognized as Africa's continent-wide trailblazer in digital payments.
- African tech landscape is being shaped by a diverse pool of innovators, including Kunbi Tinuoye, founder of UrbanGeekz, and the entrepreneurs behind Kofa Technologies, focusing on clean-tech and battery swapping technology in Ghana.
