nigeria
(3)
Tolu Alabi
Tolu Alabi is the co-founder and CEO of Cleva (YC W24), a USD banking platform that lets freelancers and businesses across Africa get paid in dollars and shield their earnings from local currency swings. Born and raised in Nigeria, she played competitive basketball before earning degrees at Grinnell College and Stanford GSB and building products at Stripe and Amazon. She also runs Next in Line Africa, a basketball nonprofit that teaches life skills to young athletes.
Tikue Anazodo
Tikue Anazodo is the co-founder and CEO of Kudos, the AI-powered smart wallet that automatically picks the best credit card for every purchase and layers on extra rewards. Born in Lagos and trained at Columbia, he built consumer payment products at Google and Affirm before launching Kudos in 2021 with Ahmad Ismail. What started as a browser extension is now a 'self-driving wallet' with over 200,000 users, $200M+ in annualized checkout volume, and $17.2M raised from QED, Patron, SV Angel, Max Levchin, and The Points Guy founder Brian Kelly.
Adeyemi Ajao
Adeyemi 'Ade' Ajao is a Nigerian-Spanish serial entrepreneur turned venture capitalist who co-founded Base10 Partners, the first Black-led VC firm to surpass $1 billion in AUM. Before building Base10, he sold Tuenti (Spain's dominant social network) to Telefónica for ~$100M and co-founded Identified, acquired by Workday. In 2023, he became the first Black investor ever named to the Forbes Midas List, and his fund's portfolio includes Nubank, Figma, Instacart, and Rappi. His contrarian bet on automating the 'Real Economy' — logistics, food, healthcare, retail — has generated over $3 billion in portfolio returns.