A few years have seen a plethora of fintech applications in Nigeria (and Africa, in general) grow at an astonishing rate. But most of these companies and developers find it difficult to access real-time banking data. This, in turn, creates a bottleneck when onboarding and verifying customers.
Fara Ashiru Jituboh is a trailblazing Nigerian entrepreneur who is making waves in the fintech industry. With over 20 programming languages under her belt, Fara has overcome the challenge of accessing real-time banking data that has plagued many fintech companies in Africa. Her startup, Okra, has raised over $4.5 million in two funding rounds this year, making it the first API fintech super-connector in Africa.
Fara’s journey to becoming a successful entrepreneur in Nigeria began in the United States, where she spent most of her early years. As a teenager, she spent a year in Nigeria and always had a desire to make an impact in the West African nation. Fara’s quest to do something big and impactful in Nigeria led her to make a permanent move to settle in the country.
In 2019, she identified a market gap in existing apps for managing bank funds and decided to develop a similar app. She developed Okra to connect her own bank account, and soon after launching, the app captured customers, becoming oversubscribed within six months.
Fara understands the need for great engineering talent due to her engineering-heavy background. Before starting Okra with Peterside, she worked with JP Morgan, Fidelity Investments, and Daimler Mercedes Benz. At Okra, she doubles as the chief executive and CTO, staking a claim as one of the most promising founders in Africa’s male-dominated fintech scene.
Okra is a super-connector that allows the secure exchange of real-time financial information between customers, applications, and banks. The platform connects customers’ accounts to banking apps and retrieves real-time financial information. In return, the firm makes money from product fees earned when a customer uses the platform to connect a bank account to a third-party application.
One of the top investors in Okra’s pre-seed round was TLcom. TLcom recognized that Okra was an outlier in their portfolio and represented their first investment in the fintech space. The company invested in Okra’s infrastructure and brought to the fore the expertise that Okra needs since TLcom has vast experience investing in Africa.
Jituboh in an interview with Forbes said, “I can do something really big and really impactful [here]. There’s so much more opportunity to do, to solve so many problems, “We look forward to seeing what Fara and Okra will achieve next and how they will continue to revolutionize the fintech industry in Africa.
In April this year, Okra raised a $3.5 million seed round led by the U.S.-based Susa Ventures. This means that as of April this year, the API company has raised a total of $4.5 million in two funding rounds.
Her first project in Nigeria was to build technology for other companies such as AXA Mansard, Sanofi Pharmaceuticals, and Airtel. Fara has a passion for solving problems and making an impact, and this is evident in the success of Okra. Her story is an inspiration to young Nigerian and African entrepreneurs who are looking to make a difference in their respective fields.
