Image a ten-year-old boy, perched at a picket desk, pencil in hand, fastidiously tallying figures from his father’s accounting books, a faint smile on his face. He imagines himself at some point changing into an accountant like his dad or educating finance at a prestigious college like Harvard. Quick ahead to 2025, and that boy, now a person, is a tech founder as a substitute. He sits throughout from me on a digital name, saying matter-of-factly that his purpose is to allow settlement of $6 billion in cross-border funds throughout Africa by his fee platform.
He’s Oreoluwa Adeyemo, co-founder of Starks Associates, a four-year-old fintech startup that has enabled the settlement of cross-border funds price almost $3 billion spanning 18+ jurisdictions and 20+ forex pairs. He claims he has serviced over 50 purchasers, together with heavyweights like unicorn fintech, Flutterwave, the Pan-African Cost and Settlement System (PAPSS), and IHS, a worldwide communications infrastructure supplier.
“Our purpose is to double the quantity in a single 12 months,” he tells me. “We’re hoping to consummate over $6 billion in 2025.” I stare at him quietly, questioning after I final heard anybody use the phrase “consummate” rather than “course of”. I don’t ask about his phrase selection right here, as a substitute, I ask how a child raised on ledgers turns into a tech entrepreneur tackling one in all Africa’s thorniest challenges. With over 40 currencies ruled by a tangle of monetary rules, cross-border funds in Africa is a tricky nut to crack. Most are accomplished by way of third-party currencies just like the greenback or euro, jacking up prices. In 2023, to ship $500 from Tanzania, you needed to pay a staggering common switch charge of $168.
Oreoluwa’s story is winding. “My dad was a ‘catch them younger’ sort of man,” he chuckles, recalling these early days when his dad taught him the fundamentals of enterprise accounting in a bid to set him on the identical path. “Fortunately for him, I additionally loved it,” he says. However regardless of his ardour, math, past primary arithmetic, wasn’t his robust swimsuit. He says it was one in all his pals who grew to become his math tutor between 2010-2011. “She was giving me assignments, questions, exams,” he says. Day after day, he tackled issues throughout his self-study. The trouble paid off. He quickly acquired into the College of Ibadan (UI) to check economics—Adeyemo boasts that the college had the most effective curricula on the topic in West Africa on the time.
Nevertheless, it was exterior the classroom that he gained the training that modified the course of his life. “I simply wished to get a first-class, pursue a grasp’s, a PhD, and write [canonical] papers on econometrics and sport principle,” he says. An introvert, he craved a quiet profession away from the general public eye. Entrepreneurship wasn’t on his radar till his second 12 months, when a lightbulb second modified the whole lot.
Somebody provided him ₦4,000 to ghostwrite previous questions and solutions (coveted research aids for examination prep). He was excited as a result of that was some huge cash for a younger child on the time, particularly because it concerned doing what he had at all times accomplished, finding out. However after a mentor identified the worth of his mental property, he inspired him to work on the ebook himself and earn extra money.
With funding from his dad, Adeyemo printed his ebook, including an introduction to sport principle. He satisfied photocopy distributors to promote it to pupil prospects, and went door to door throughout schools and halls of residence, promoting the ebook. He offered copies price over ₦120,000. He additionally gained recognition amongst lecturers. Extra importantly, it was a turning level. “That’s what opened my thoughts to, ‘I could make this type of cash.’ I wished to be an worker, a lecturer, however I realised I might make cash for myself.”
The expertise reshaped him. “I should be extra outspoken, outgoing, daring,” he realised. “I have to promote myself, be marketable, costume properly. I can’t be timid.” This newfound boldness led him to run for president of the economics division in his third 12 months. “I used to be nonetheless a bit shy, however my mindset was, ‘I’ve to come back out of my shell, discuss to individuals, get issues accomplished.’” He received, marking his transformation from introvert to chief. Adewole Adedeji, who joined the departmental government group as treasurer, went on to change into the co-founder and spine of his fintech startup, Starks Associates.
Adeyemo’s journey to founding Starks Associates was a winding highway of hands-on expertise and sudden pivots. After his college years, he aimed for funding banking, concentrating on prestigious corporations like Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. He went by rounds of interviews, tailor-made his CVs, ready case research, and pitched himself, however the provides didn’t come. Throughout his one-year obligatory youth service program for college graduates, he labored as an accountant for a farm, balancing ledgers, monitoring bills, and managing payroll. Subsequent, he joined a boutique funding financial institution on Lagos Island, the place he dove into deal evaluation, researched market traits, and supported shopper pitches, studying the nuts and bolts of finance.
His first massive break got here when he landed a job at Entry Financial institution. There, Adeyemo labored as a part of the company banking group, structuring loans for companies, analysing credit score dangers, and constructing monetary fashions to evaluate shopper viability. He collaborated with account officers to observe shopper portfolios, guaranteeing well timed repayments, and sat in on technique periods to develop the financial institution’s attain to SMEs. “We have been roughing our manner, understanding finance,” he recollects.
The spark for Starks ignited on a post-NYSC journey to Egypt together with his group, together with co-founder Adedeji. They’d deliberate a brief retreat to calm down, however an prolonged keep depleted their greenback money. They’d forgotten their USD playing cards in Nigeria, leaving solely Naira playing cards. On the lodge foyer, Adeyemo swiped his card, hoping to withdraw funds. It failed. Annoyed, he requested, “How will we get cash? If I had my USD card in England or Spain, I might withdraw euros or kilos with out concern. Why can’t African currencies swap like that—Naira to Cedis, Rand to Shillings, as liquid as {dollars}, kilos, or G10 currencies?”
Again in Nigeria, Adeyemo gathered pals and specialists in a room to sketch out a product— an app for people to swap African currencies. They debated options, mocked up concepts, and pitched to potential advisors, however the plan faltered. “There was a number of noise, no coordination,” Adeyemo says. “We couldn’t nail the go-to-market technique.” They shifted focus to enabling firms to trade African currencies.
They didn’t chase each shopper, Adeyemo says. First, they focused fintechs which already serviced retailers transferring items and providers throughout borders, “low-hanging fruits” like unicorn fintech Flutterwave and the Pan-African Cost and Settlement System (PAPSS).
Subsequent, they roped in commodity merchants, MSMEs needing quick funds, and massive establishments like IHS, a worldwide communications infrastructure supplier, dealing with vendor funds or subsidiaries. “We’re very agnostic in regards to the companies we help,” Adeyemo says, itemizing fintechs, arts and crafts, even banking purchasers. The corporate has processed near $3 billion in quantity since.
Subsequent degree? $6 billion in cross-border funds
Their ambition burns hotter: hit $6 billion in 2025, doubling 4 years’ work in a single.
I lean in on our name. “How do you propose to tug that off?” I ask. In his laid-back manner, he stated a number of what may be summarised as “ proper partnerships and grit.” It’s a mantra formed by his path, in any case.
“African commerce has began to carry off,” Adeyemo noticed. The corporate can also be trying to develop providers past settlement and provide financing to enterprise house owners who do cross-border commerce.
To elaborate on the demand for financing, Adeyemo shared that the earlier week, at a convention, he met a Nigerian exporter of constructing merchandise to East Africa. “Her enterprise had expanded very quickly,” he stated excitedly. “She’s not one in all my purchasers but, however she wants financing to ship extra.” In February 2025, he visited a Kenyan grocery store, chatting with locals—girls within the magnificence area, hungry for Nigerian merchandise. “They see all this stuff on social media—Nigerian women use them, look effective, fairly, and all that,” he says, chuckling at their enthusiasm. Entry was the hindrance. “There’s a requirement for our native magnificence merchandise in Nigeria, in Kenya, or in East Africa,” he famous, and he believes Starks might assist fill that hole by offering financing and cross-border settlement.
Commerce between African nations reached $208 billion in 2024—up 7.7% from the earlier 12 months, in line with the African Export-Import Financial institution (Afreximbank). “If I’m saying I need to do $6 billion, I’m not even fascinated with it correctly,” he stated. “I’ve to assume larger.”
I respect that the chance is massive, however many startups have tried and didn’t maintain operations in that sector. He acknowledges the endeavours of different founders but in addition admits that he can’t pinpoint why others failed. “I can solely converse to what our plan is, what our challenges to this point are,” he says. “Partnership could be very key in finance and on this enterprise the place you need to join Africa,” he explains.
“It is advisable perceive the tradition, their temperament, how they relate, how they need you to articulate your options, the size of time it should take to consummate a deal,” he says. There’s that phrase once more.
It may possibly get irritating: a deal may shut quick in a single nation, then drag for months elsewhere, tangled in crimson tape or trust-building. “It’s an enormous drawback, however we’ve managed to resolve it in these previous few years,” he says. His group has discovered the ropes, and their imaginative and prescient has solely change into stronger— to change into a financial institution, that’s, borderless.
“Every thing we’re going to be doing a minimum of for the following 5 strategic years that we’ve mapped out is to realize that and guarantee seamlessness,” he says.
I ask him what number of traders he has managed to get onboarded to finance this imaginative and prescient. “We’re attempting to boost in the meanwhile, however we aren’t in a rush,” he says, cautious about offers which will shortchange his firm, honed by years as an funding banker. “We don’t need to simply leap into something.”
He says a number of VCs have tabled provides, and a few Growth Finance Establishments (DFIs) have given approvals in precept. “We’ve gotten affirmation in precept that they like our enterprise, they like what we’re doing,” he shares. “They’re going to make a proposal, however we have now to get to a sure degree or stability sheet measurement,” he explains. He additionally stresses that the corporate isn’t just trying on the cash, however needs traders who perceive the dream, the purpose.
As 2025 rolls on, Starks’ five-year map stretches forward: Adeyemo and his group’s efforts are targeted on deepening the community, scaling quantity—deal by deal, forex by forex, to carry the continent nearer and make commerce borderless.
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