# 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.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Cleva
- **Organizations:** Cleva, Next in Line Africa, Stripe, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, WhatsApp
- **From:** Abuja, Nigeria
- **Nationality:** Nigerian
- **Education:** MBA, Stanford Graduate School of Business, B.A. in Computer Science and Mathematics, Grinnell College
- **Known for:** Co-founded and leads Cleva, a YC W24 fintech providing USD accounts to Africans., Grew Cleva to over $1M in monthly payment volume within four months of launch, with roughly 100% month-over-month revenue growth., Raised $1.5M pre-seed led by 1984 Ventures with The Raba Partnership, Byld Ventures, FirstCheck Africa, and Y Combinator.

## Career timeline

- **2008** — Played for Nigeria's U16 national basketball team and First Bank Basketball club.
- **2012-13** — Standout season at Grinnell College; named to the All-Midwest Conference Women's Basketball Second Team.
- **Early career** — FX algorithmic quant at Goldman Sachs; engineering roles including WhatsApp and IT Inkubator GmbH.
- **Amazon** — Senior Technical Product Manager working on logistics and augmented reality.
- **Stripe** — Lead Product Manager building Issuing and Banking products and the Identity & Access Management team.
- **2020-2021** — Founded Next in Line Africa, a basketball nonprofit for African youth.
- **2023-03** — Co-founded Cleva with Philip Abel.
- **2023-08** — Cleva launched its USD banking product.
- **2024-01** — Cleva raised $1.5M pre-seed and joined Y Combinator's Winter 2024 batch.

## Achievements

- Co-founded and leads Cleva, a YC W24 fintech providing USD accounts to Africans.
- Grew Cleva to over $1M in monthly payment volume within four months of launch, with roughly 100% month-over-month revenue growth.
- Raised $1.5M pre-seed led by 1984 Ventures with The Raba Partnership, Byld Ventures, FirstCheck Africa, and Y Combinator.
- Built Issuing and Banking products at Stripe as a Lead Product Manager.
- Co-authored a paper on a FAST K-Selection algorithm for the GPU, published in the ACM Journal of Experimental Algorithmics.
- Named to the All-Midwest Conference Women's Basketball Second Team at Grinnell College.
- Represented Nigeria on the U16 national basketball team.

## Latest updates

- **2024-01** — Cleva closed a $1.5M pre-seed round and joined Y Combinator's Winter 2024 batch.
- **2024-08** — Reported latest seed-stage funding activity as the company scaled its USD account and card products.

## Links

- Website: https://getcleva.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tolu-alabi-08697525/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/tolu_tols1

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/tolu-alabi
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-31