In October 2024, almost a decade after it launched from a cramped “store workplace” in Lagos, Nairabox, a Nigerian digital ticketing and life-style platform, was acquired by journey tech large Wakanow. For founders Jay Chikezie and Tokunbo Adetona, the exit marked the tip of a 10-year dash and the start of a brand new chapter for Nairabox.
What started as a funds experiment in 2015 turned one of many backbones of a multi-billion-naira leisure ecosystem. And in the long run, it was the seriousness of that ecosystem and the sheer dimension of the distribution runway that Nairabox might unlock that caught Wakanow’s consideration, till the founders lastly mentioned sure.
Nairabox was by no means constructed to be bought
Their founders meant to dominate the life-style area, not exit it. However over time, they realised one thing else: to realize the imaginative and prescient they’d grown into, another person would possibly have to take the baton.
“We’ve at all times been serial entrepreneurs,” Chikezie says. “Nairabox was our first youngster, however we had been already engaged on different infants. We launched Tremendoc in 2017 whereas Nairabox was nonetheless crawling.”
Wakanow had been attempting to amass the corporate since 2022 to increase past journey into leisure and life-style sectors, in line with Chikezie. The founders had been cussed; the attachment was emotional as a lot as strategic. However the courtship was persistent.
“They began as purchasers,” Adetona explains. “However from the Group CEO, Bayo Adedeji, it was clear he noticed one thing a lot greater. He knew the place he needed to take it, and ultimately, we noticed that too. It turned a legacy dialog.”
deal, but additionally the correct one
Was the acquisition cash good?
Chikezie laughs earlier than answering: “It was good. However past the cash, they wanted to grasp the imaginative and prescient.” The founders didn’t disclose the deal’s price.
The negotiation spanned three years. What satisfied the founders wasn’t simply valuation; it was continuity. Wakanow agreed to protect the Nairabox model, keep core partnerships, and embed Nairabox’s tradition of innovation into a bigger distribution community. The deal additionally included transitional roles: Chikezie joined as an advisor and guide.
“We needed to verify the imaginative and prescient was transferred correctly,” Chikezie says. “Nairabox didn’t simply construct tech; we constructed partnerships. That was our superpower.”
For Chikezie and Adetona, one phrase saved arising: distribution. Wakanow had bodily places throughout Africa, one thing Nairabox might by no means replicate by itself. Whereas younger Nigerians embraced digital ticketing, a big portion of the inhabitants nonetheless needed human reassurance.
“Folks wish to stroll in someplace. They wish to converse to somebody,” Adetona says. “Wakanow had that belief community.”
Wakanow additionally had capital, regional presence, and the operational muscle to execute the “life-style ecosystem” imaginative and prescient Nairabox had at all times imagined: flights, occasions, meals, streaming, even transport.
An organization constructed out of frustration
Sarcastically, Nairabox by no means meant to be a ticketing firm.
“We had been constructing a funds platform,” Chikezie remembers. “POS networks had been a large number at the moment. Playing cards declined continuously. We created a barcode system so individuals might pay offline.”
Nairabox secured 400 service provider retailers and a verbal settlement with a financial institution to make use of its licence. On that foundation, they raised ₦20 million (roughly $100,000 on the 2015 trade price of ₦200 to $1) and constructed the total product in 2015.
Once they returned to the financial institution, able to launch, all the things collapsed.
“They advised us, ‘You’ll be within the pipeline for subsequent 12 months.’ We had secured the cash as a result of we advised traders that the financial institution was backing,” Chikezie says. “The crew was drained. It was devastating.”
Within the emotional aftermath of that assembly, Chikezie, drawing from his leisure background, pitched a survival thought: ticketing.
Cinemas had no ticketing platforms. Occasion promoters relied on electronic mail confirmations and printed sheets of paper. The queues had been limitless. The expertise was chaotic. No person thought digital ticketing might be an trade.
The founders argued bitterly. The projections for funds had been big; the projections for ticketing had been tiny. However the barcode tech they’d constructed might be reversed: as a substitute of scanning to pay, customers might scan to enter.
“Six or seven years later, I realised we had really launched e-ticketing to Africa,” Chikezie says. “We didn’t suppose we had been innovating again then. We had been simply in hassle.”
How an underfunded startup hacked visibility
In contrast to fintechs like Paystack and Flutterwave, born in the identical period, Nairabox was underfunded. From 2015 to 2024, the startup raised solely $1.2 million.
“We had been grossly underfunded,” Chikezie says. “However we let our income converse for us.”
The crew compensated with partnerships. Nairabox struck offers with 13 business banks and collaborated with Visa and Mastercard, thereby strengthening its monetary ecosystem. Its attain prolonged into client and life-style sectors by partnerships with Burger King, Bukka Hut, main cinema chains, and tons of of eating places nationwide. The corporate additionally teamed up with main international manufacturers similar to BlackBerry, Nokia, Guinness, and Common Music Group, whereas working intently with promoters and leisure manufacturers throughout the nation.
In 2018, a Visa partnership gave them 50 billboards for no less than ten big-ticket concert events in December. As a part of the deal, Visa clients who purchased tickets on Nairabox would obtain a ten% low cost on concert events that includes Afrobeats superstars Davido or Burna Boy. The next 12 months, 2019, MasterCard, feeling outdone, doubled it to 100 billboards.
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“These billboards would have price tons of of tens of millions (of naira),” Chikezie says. “However partnerships had been our forex.”
The visibility made Nairabox the “cool model” in life-style expertise and ultimately the default ticketing engine for Nigeria’s greatest concert events.
The occasion that modified all the things
For his or her first 12 months, no promoter cared in regards to the expertise. What mattered was database dimension, and Nairabox had none. They only wanted one occasion, in line with Chikezie.
It arrived in 2016: Felabration at Arduous Rock Café, making its Lagos Island debut.
The promoter, Matthew Ohio, referred to as Chikezie to pitch the concept. Jay made a snap resolution that startled everybody: he supplied ₦1 million (about $1.39 million on the 2017 trade price of ₦360 to $1) immediately for 40% of the ticket gross sales.
As quickly as Ohio left the workplace, the opposite co-founders panicked. However Chikezie insisted: “Individuals who have to see our expertise can be there.” He was proper.
The occasion created the viral visibility Nairabox had been ready for. Promoters started reaching out. The model instantly had avenue credibility. The tech labored flawlessly in a high-pressure surroundings.
However the true explosion got here the next 12 months.
Nairabox labored with Mr Eazi, Burna Boy, and others, however the watershed second was Davido’s 30 Billion Live performance in 2017.
After the present, Davido posted on Snapchat, thanking Nairabox by identify and saying the live performance grossed over ₦500 million (about $1.39 million on the 2017 trade price of ₦360 to $1).
“Folks began counting our cash instantly,” Chikezie laughs. “Even FIRS confirmed up at our workplace.”
By January 2018, dozens of ticketing platforms sprang up, believing ticketing was instantly worthwhile. Most died inside a 12 months.
The founders recall one competitor calling to concede: “Okay, Jay, I settle for. You guys are primary.”
The tech hole nobody noticed coming
In 2017, Nairabox’s founding CTO and co-founder, Damilola Jegede, left the corporate. His departure created a deep technical vacuum.
“Dami was pondering three steps forward of each construct,” Adetona explains. “Changing that sort of technical mind is sort of unimaginable.”
They employed engineers, however execution slowed. A few of the massive concepts stalled as a result of the crew lacked senior tech management.
Funding might have solved this, however COVID hit. When the lockdowns started, 80% of Nairabox’s income disappeared in a single day. Cinemas, occasions, festivals, all the things stopped.
The crew needed to improvise once more.
The corporate launched Nairabox Meals in 2020, a meals supply firm, signing 300 eating places in Lagos and 60 in Abuja. It additionally launched Nairabox TV in April 2021, pioneering live-streamed studio concert events with artists like Chike and Oxlade.
Nairabox collaborated with Nelson Jack and later with YouTube, streaming performances by Grammy-winning acts Wizkid and Burna Boy. It saved the model alive till occasions returned. However it additionally uncovered a troublesome fact: to scale the massive concepts, they wanted funding, and quick.
A ticketing firm that by no means considered competitors
One of many hanging issues about Chikezie and Adetona is how little they cared about opponents.
“Folks get triggered by competitors,” Chikezie says. “We targeted on the issue.”
Nairabox, regardless of not initially desiring to be a ticketing firm, finally performed a decisive function in shaping the Nigerian e-ticketing panorama after its entry in 2015. Though platforms like Ariiya Tickets had been based earlier, the essential innovation Nairabox launched was barcode expertise, which shortly turned the trade commonplace and is now utilised by almost each ticketing platform within the nation.
Chikezie and Adetona could also be serial entrepreneurs, however Nairabox is the corporate that taught them the worth of stubbornness, improvisation, and timing. The corporate they constructed out of panic turned a nationwide infrastructure. And now, underneath Wakanow, it has a runway lengthy sufficient to lastly fulfil the imaginative and prescient that began in a small Lagos workplace, to turn out to be the most important life-style and e-ticketing platform in Africa. Adetona is constructing a brand new cost firm for freelancers referred to as Simplifi, whereas Chikezie continues to run Tremendoc and Myphlexit, a brand new life-style firm for the UK market.
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