A motorbike accident was the breaking level for Oluwaleke Fakorede

Oluwaleke Fakorede’s story begins on a grim observe. On a random weekend in July 2022, after visiting associates in Osogbo, southwest Nigeria, he rode house on his superbike, the solar warming his pores and skin.

Fakorede liked his superbike. For the Nigerian-born software program engineer, the bike offered an everyday rush of adrenaline break from sedentary work. However on this present day in July, zooming by means of the asphalt tracks of the Osogbo freeway, a automobile appeared out of nowhere and out of the blue swerved in entrance of him. He skidded off the trail, his physique lurching ahead, and in a blur, got here crashing down helmet-first onto the exhausting ground.

“I noticed my life flash earlier than my eyes,” recalled Fakorede. “I wasn’t going too quick, so I might nonetheless management the place I dived to. Fortunately, I used to be carrying full gear when [the accident] occurred, however I nonetheless sustained bruises and sprained my ankle badly.”

The accident occured proper in entrance of a police station. The motive force of the rogue automobile that hit him turned out to be a police officer who claimed his tyre had burst. As an alternative of holding the officer accountable, different officers turned on Fakorede and threatened to lock him up.

“That is an insane nation,” he remembers considering after leaving the station in disbelief. The next day, nonetheless bandaged from the accident and strolling cautiously with a limp, Fakorede headed out to drop his broken bike elements on the mechanic’s. There, one other unmarked police automobile pulled up, and officers jumped out with their weapons drawn, demanded his papers, and tried to extort him. They detained him for practically two hours till he known as his father to intervene.

Fakorede would spend weeks recovering bodily, and several other extra years therapeutic from the emotional scar. Till then, he had by no means critically thought of leaving Nigeria. But it surely was the accident, and the occasions that adopted, that ignited a powerful want to maneuver overseas and construct his profession in an surroundings the place, as he places it, “freedom of motion meant security.”

The person, his bike, and his desires overseas

Fakorede is the founding father of Proton Tech Lab, however is finest often called the Chief Know-how Officer (CTO) of GoWagr, a Nigerian ‘prediction market’ startup the place over 400,000 customers can win cash from predicting real-life occasions. He co-founded the startup with longtime associates, Daniel Oladepo and Michael Okoko, in 2021. However they constructed their conviction two years later, in the course of the nation’s 2023 basic elections, once they noticed a possibility to assist Nigerians earn a living. 

They examined the thought by constructing a small spreadsheet to trace individuals’s predictions on election outcomes and awarding winners a share of pooled contributions; a low-tech experiment that validated demand earlier than they shipped the product.

Earlier than GoWagr, Fakorede had constructed his profession throughout a number of high-profile Nigerian and overseas startups. An Andela-trained expertise, he reduce his enamel at Terragon as an information engineer earlier than stints at Denmark’s Sports activities Compass, Nestcoin, Binance, and Yellow Card. But it surely was a distant job at  Insomnia Labs, a US-based enterprise studio he joined in 2022, that gave him an actual foretaste of life outdoors Nigeria.

In his two-room house in Ife, Osun State, Fakorede constructed and scaled a tech crew to ship merchandise for corporations like Coca-Cola, ICC, Ava Labs, and Coinbase. Steadily, his significance to the crew grew. He rose to VP of Engineering, then turned CTO. The corporate determined it was time to satisfy the person in individual.

After his bike incident in July 2022, Fakorede travelled out of Nigeria to the UK for the primary time to satisfy the highest brass executives at Insomnia Labs. It left an impression on his employers, and shortly, the corporate wished him to maneuver completely.

“I assumed, if I had been bodily nearer to the crew, we might get a lot extra executed,” he stated. 

Although he romanticised what life within the UK would appear to be, Fakorede additionally considered Scandinavian nations to settle in. But his dream to construct GoWagr, the will that nudged him all alongside, drew him to the US, the place Insomnia Labs is headquartered. 

Transferring to the US on an H-1B

In April 2023, Insomnia Labs filed a petition for Fakorede’s H-1B visa, America’s tightly regulated work allow for specialty occupations. The appliance course of was of venture as a result of the visa is awarded by means of a lottery. Yearly, American corporations file petitions for expert overseas employees, however the demand is way larger than the availability. Tons of of hundreds apply, but solely a couple of minimal of 85,000 names are chosen.

Fakorede’s identify didn’t make the reduce at first. He waited with uncertainty, uncertain if the door to his American dream had closed. Then, in August that very same 12 months, whereas nonetheless at house in Nigeria, he obtained the decision that modified all the things. His petition had been picked in any case. It took 4 months.

Effervescent with pleasure, he moved into the subsequent part of the journey, beginning with the submitting of the I-129 petition with the US Citizenship and Immigration Providers (USCIS), the official request that permits an employer to sponsor a overseas employee for an H-1B visa. After that got here authorized filings, credential checks, and preparations for the embassy interview. Fakorede rapidly realised that getting his petition picked was solely the primary hurdle. Insomnia Labs, as his sponsor, dealt with the paperwork and lawyer charges, nevertheless it required endurance regardless of the fast-tracked course of.

“We opted for premium processing to expedite the total H-1B visa approval; this often takes about two weeks,” stated Fakorede, including that his petition acquired accredited, inching him one other step nearer to the American dream. “However I used to be outdoors the US on the time, so I wanted a visa to enter the nation. I went again to the embassy to try this.”

When he went for his visa interview on the US embassy in Nigeria, officers stated the executive processing would take two weeks and held on to his passport. What was meant to be a brief wait stretched into practically two months. He couldn’t journey. Every single day, he refreshed the portal, checking anxiously because the standing remained pending. Lastly, after one other two months, he noticed that his visa had been issued.

By December 2023, all the things was lastly in place. He bought his bike, stated goodbye to family and friends, and boarded a aircraft to the US on February 1, 2024. The day marked a private rebirth and the beginning of a brand new chapter he anticipated could be radically completely different from what he was used to in Nigeria, Fakorede reminisced.

Embracing life at Insomnia Labs within the US, he thrived, rapidly integrating into the crew and making vital contributions on the highest ranges. However at the same time as he discovered stability, he was already considering forward. 

A 12 months later, in mid-2025, Fakorede upgraded his keep within the US to the O-1 nonimmigrant work visa, reserved for people of “extraordinary potential.” This provides him a clearer path to everlasting residency within the US, and eventually, the liberty to go away employment and focus totally on GoWagr. 

In July 2025, he resigned from his position at Insomnia Labs.

Life on the East Coast

No stranger to travelling earlier than his migration to the US, Fakorede admitted there have been the standard tradition shocks. However dwelling prices in all probability rank excessive up that checklist. In Manhattan, New York, the place he briefly lived when he was visiting the US in 2023, he paid $2,800 for a studio house month-to-month. He was additionally principally ordering meals and consuming out, stretching these prices.

“I even made a bit of app simply to calculate what I’d really spend,” he stated, laughing. “However cooking is unquestionably cheaper than weeks of spending $500 on Uber Eats and DoorDash; I’ve executed the maths a number of instances.”

To chop prices, Fakorede moved to a one-bedroom home in downtown Newark, New Jersey, the place he pays $2,200. There, he started cooking his personal meals, saving a fraction of the prices. When it got here to work, Fakorede settled right into a routine of late-night work calls along with his GoWagr Nigerian teammates.

“We joke that our startup runs 24/7,” he stated. By day, he leads the engineering crew to ship options; at different instances, he anchors partnerships, technique, and investor conferences overseas.

Communities have helped him modify within the US. In New York, he inserted himself into founder meetups and immigrant-focused teams the place dinners and informal introductions opened doorways to individuals he as soon as solely examine. 

“Three months in the past, I used to be in Goldman Sachs HQ in New York, talking with a few VPs and a few very massive pictures,” stated Fakorede. “No approach I’d be doing that in Nigeria.”

Construct for house, however don’t lose contact with house 

If Nigeria gave Fakorede grit, the US gave him perspective. In America, prediction markets like Polymarket are edging in the direction of unicorn standing, using on the again of stronger regulatory readability and investor urge for food. Africa, in contrast, has no outlined regulatory class. Prediction typically dangers getting lumped along with playing, virtually comically, and this stifles innovation.

“What I noticed right here was completely different,” Fakorede famous. “Within the US, it’s not simply luck. It’s skill-based, community-driven. That was refreshing, and that’s what we wished to convey again house.”

GoWagr formally launched in 2023, simply after Nigeria’s elections. By re-framing prediction markets as ability and participation reasonably than playing, the startup discovered a foothold amongst younger Nigerians. 

But African traders stay cautious. Many battle to distinguish prediction markets from betting, and few perceive the mannequin deeply.

“Some native traders in Nigeria don’t perceive the mannequin till you point out Polymarket,” he defined. “Others simply wait to see numbers. However with or with out them, we’ll get there. The one query is how briskly.”

With some good numbers now rolling in throughout customers and income, Fakorede doesn’t assume it’s tougher to persuade sceptical traders.

But his fundraising sport of chess is two-pronged: he makes use of his location benefit to talk with high-value overseas traders who perceive the mannequin, scale potential, early-to-market attraction, and Africa’s large publicity to eSports. Regionally, the numbers, tradition tap-in, and a gateway to purchasing into a world enterprise develop into the promote.

For the ex-Insomnia Labs chief, being world isn’t just a technique—it’s survival. Okoko, his equally technical co-founder, covers the Nigerian time zone; Fakorede anchors the American facet. Between them, the product by no means sleeps.

The Osogbo accident on that fateful afternoon taught Fakorede about uncertainty—no, the fickleness of existence, but the grace to steer a lifetime of urgency. All through his profession, he has earned excessive reward, however he considers GoWagr his life’s work, and there’s an unreal work ethic he has dedicated to constructing the corporate of his dream.

He’s chasing scale. America, its savoir faire that rubs off on nearly anybody who spends every week there, and Silicon Valley’s considerably performative élan for business-dealing have develop into all too acquainted to Fakorede. GoWagr can be a world affair, he tells me, fairly probably the most important startup of its form from Africa. And there in America, he has the precedents he badly lacks in his house continent to be taught from.

As we wrapped up our name, Fakorede didn’t punt. He delivers his level like a rugby wing diving for the strive line, making it clear that you simply can’t construct for an African market you might be dropping contact with as a nomadic or location-independent founder. His hack is to have co-pilots—comrades-in-arms in the event you like—on the bottom constructing GoWagr for an African market the place client behaviour is usually erratic.

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