Okra, a Nigerian fintech platform and Open Finance (API Economy), has secured a $3.5m Seed raise to expand its data infrastructure across Nigeria and enable developers and businesses to build personalized digital services and fintech products for customers.
Okra’s $3.5m Seed raise was led by US-based Susa Ventures, with participation from existing investors TLcom Capital, and newly joined Accenture Ventures, just under a year from closing its $1m pre-Seed round from TLcom Capital. Today’s raise brings Okra’s total funding at seed to $4.5m.
In a statement, Fara Ashiru Jituboh, Okra co-founder and CEO/CTO said, “We build the tools that businesses need to achieve full digital transformation and we are excited to be welcoming some highly strategic global investors as we scale our Open Finance-as-a-Service operations. The opportunities to collaborate and grow together are significant and we are now in a strong position to continue to build and scale in the African, and global API space.”
Founded in January 2020 by Fara Ashiru Jituboh and David Peterside, Okra’s Open Finance platform is the digital transformation tool for businesses in Africa and its API, has provided services to firms including Interswitch, Access Bank, uLesson, Aella App (YC W17) and over a 100 digital-first platforms. Okra has analyzed 20M+ transactions and analyzed over 5.5M transaction lines in March 2021 alone.
David Peterside, Okra co-founder and COO says, “The companies that will dominate the business landscape over the next decade are prioritizing a digital-first experience for their customers today — and will leverage data & personalization to win market share over time. We share the same vision on Open Finance in Africa and are excited to be working closely with the team at Susa. Having Accenture Ventures join us at Seed stage speaks volumes about our team’s ability to execute at a global scale.”
Consumer behaviour in Africa is changing and consumers are demanding full digital experiences of all services — including financial services. Across the business landscape, the number one priority across every board room is digital transformation and Okra is the go-to platform for developers and businesses to build end-to-end personalized digital experiences for consumers in Africa.
“We have consistently been impressed with Fara’s technical depth and expertise, which when combined with the entrepreneurial acumen she and David bring to the company leaves us confident that they are building Africa’s most stable and robust API infrastructure. TLcom is delighted to continue partnering with Okra.” concluded Omobola Johnson, Senior Partner at TLcom Capital and Former Minister of ICT in Nigeria.
Apart from Susa, TLcom Capital and Accenture, other investors who participated in the round include Rob Solomon; Chairman at GoFundMe — he is also a former Partner at Accel, Arpan Shah; Founding engineer and ex- Head of Data Platforms/Data products at Robinhood, and Hongxia Zhong; Founding engineer and ex- Senior engineering manager at Robinhood.