How Shola Akinlade Built Paystack into One of Africa’s Leading Startups | USAEMALL.com

In Summary

• Founded in 2015, Paystack created a Pan-African payment infrastructure allowing businesses to accept cards, bank transfers, and mobile money seamlessly.
• Acquired by Stripe in 2020 for over $200 million, marking one of Africa’s largest fintech exits and a milestone in continental innovation.
• Serving over 60,000 businesses across Nigeria and Ghana, Paystack processes more than half of Nigeria’s online payments, driving digital commerce growth.

Deep Dive!!

Lagos, Nigeria, Thursday, October 26 – Africa’s rapidly expanding digital economy has produced few companies whose influence extends far beyond commercial success. Among them, Paystack stands as a defining example of how solving structural inefficiencies with local insight and scalable design can transform an entire industry. Founded in 2015 by Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi, Paystack addressed a critical gap in fragmented, slow, and developer-unfriendly payment systems that constrained African businesses’ participation in digital commerce.

Before Paystack, merchants struggled with multiple disconnected payment channels, delayed settlements, and complex bank integrations, limiting the growth of SMEs and e-commerce platforms. Akinlade’s experience building enterprise software and working directly with banks revealed these systemic issues and inspired a platform designed to unify payments across cards, bank transfers, and mobile money, while providing automated settlements and developer-friendly APIs.

Within the first few years, Paystack validated its model through early merchant adoption and iterative design. By 2017, the company served thousands of businesses, processing billions of naira in transactions. Acceptance into Y Combinator in 2016 provided mentorship, funding, and international exposure, accelerating growth and helping the founders position Paystack for future investment rounds. By 2018, the platform processed tens of billions of naira monthly, expanded product offerings, and became indispensable to Nigerian merchants.

The company’s trajectory reached a historic milestone in October 2020, when Stripe acquired Paystack for a reported $200 million. This landmark deal not only marked one of Africa’s largest fintech exits but also validated a locally built solution capable of meeting global standards. Today, Paystack serves over 60,000 businesses across Nigeria and Ghana, facilitating seamless payments and helping integrate African commerce into the broader global economy.

More than a payment platform, Paystack exemplifies how deep local insight, scalable infrastructure, and a Pan-African vision can create solutions with lasting impact. Under Akinlade’s leadership, the company has set a benchmark for African fintechs, proving that the continent can produce globally relevant, technologically sophisticated companies that empower businesses and drive economic growth.

Early Life, Education, and Experience

Shola Akinlade was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, a city known as the country’s commercial hub and a center for technology innovation in West Africa. Growing up in Lagos exposed him to both the culture and the structural challenges of urban African life, including fragmented systems, inconsistent service delivery, and early encounters with digital technologies. These formative experiences helped shape his awareness of systemic inefficiencies, later influencing his approach to building technology solutions for African businesses.

For his secondary education, Akinlade attended St. Gregory’s College in Lagos, a prestigious institution known for academic rigor and discipline. During these years, he developed an early interest in technology and problem-solving, experimenting with basic software projects and cultivating analytical thinking skills that would underpin his later career. His aptitude for technology, combined with the problem-solving environment at school, laid the foundation for his pursuit of computer science.

After completing secondary school, Akinlade enrolled at Babcock University in Ogun State, Nigeria, where he studied Computer Science. His university education provided him with a solid grounding in algorithms, software engineering principles, system design, and database management. Beyond technical skills, university life allowed him to develop collaborative and leadership competencies, particularly through his relationship with Ezra Olubi, who would later become his co-founder at Paystack. Their shared academic background and complementary skill sets would prove instrumental in the company’s founding.

Following graduation around 2006, Akinlade began his professional career in enterprise software and technology solutions. He joined Nigerian Breweries / Heineken as a management trainee, where he specialized in database management and systems integration. This early corporate experience exposed him to structured workflows, operational efficiencies, and the gaps that existed in organizational technology knowledge that would later inform his design of scalable software solutions for African markets.

After leaving corporate work in 2009, Akinlade co-founded Klein Devort, a software company where he led the development of Precurio, an open-source enterprise collaboration platform. Precurio served thousands of organizations across Nigeria and other African markets, helping him gain deep insight into the challenges faced by businesses in adopting technology solutions. He observed that while companies had access to digital tools, payment infrastructure remained fragmented, slow, and unreliable a gap that would directly inspire the creation of Paystack.

Akinlade’s early life, combined with his rigorous education and hands-on enterprise experience, created a foundation of technical expertise, market awareness, and problem-solving capacity. These elements collectively positioned him to identify critical gaps in African financial systems and to envision a scalable, continent-wide solution for online payments.

Inspiration to Start Paystack

The creation of Paystack was rooted in Shola Akinlade’s extensive experience in software development and enterprise solutions. Before Paystack, Akinlade co-founded Precurio, an open-source enterprise collaboration platform used by over 200,000 organizations across multiple African markets. Working with these organizations exposed him to the practical realities of business operations in Africa, including how payments were processed and the limitations of existing systems. Through these interactions, he saw that many businesses struggled with fragmented payment channels, delayed settlements, complex integrations, and heavy reliance on foreign payment solutions.

While building Precurio, Akinlade also worked directly with banks and financial institutions, developing custom integrations and supporting enterprise clients. He quickly realized that setting up online payments was cumbersome, businesses often faced lengthy onboarding, multiple intermediaries, and a lack of developer-friendly tools. Some merchants reportedly waited weeks to begin accepting payments due to manual processes, stringent documentation, and slow bank approvals. These firsthand observations revealed a persistent gap in Africa’s financial infrastructure a gap that was slowing the growth of online commerce.

Akinlade recognized that Africa’s rapidly growing internet economy required a unified, scalable, and developer-friendly payment solution. He understood that SMEs and online merchants needed a platform that could accept multiple payment methods, integrate seamlessly with existing systems, and provide reliable settlement processes. In his own words, the insight was simple: “If there’s someone that can figure out payments in Africa, it probably will be me.”

Another critical dimension of the inspiration was a pan-African vision. Although Nigeria presented the largest initial market, Akinlade and his co-founder Ezra Olubi saw that the problem of fragmented and inefficient payment systems was continent-wide. They envisioned a platform capable of scaling across Africa, enabling businesses in multiple countries to participate fully in digital commerce without friction.

Before publicly launching Paystack, the team engaged in early customer validation. They created a waiting list of merchants to assess demand, quickly gathering hundreds of sign-ups within a month. This feedback confirmed that the pain points they observed were widespread and that a comprehensive payments platform could address a critical market need.

In essence, Paystack’s inception was the result of a combination of technical expertise, hands-on exposure to enterprise and banking systems, and a clear understanding of African market inefficiencies. Akinlade’s experiences provided the foundation for a solution that was both locally informed and scalable, designed not just for Nigeria but for the broader African digital economy.

What Problem Paystack Solves

Paystack was founded to address systemic inefficiencies in Africa’s digital payments ecosystem. The platform was designed to remove friction, streamline operations, and provide scalable infrastructure for African businesses. The key problems it solves include:

1. Fragmented Payment Channels Across AfricaBefore Paystack, businesses had to integrate with multiple providers to accept card payments, bank transfers, and mobile money. Each provider had its own onboarding process, documentation, and technical requirements, creating a fragmented experience for merchants. Many SMEs lacked the technical expertise to manage multiple systems, which slowed adoption of digital payments.

2. Slow Settlements and Cash Flow ChallengesTraditional payment systems often delayed fund settlements, taking days or weeks for merchants to access payments. This posed significant challenges for businesses reliant on quick cash flow. In addition, high transaction fees and hidden costs reduced profitability for small enterprises, discouraging online commerce growth.

3. Poor Developer Tools and Complex IntegrationExisting solutions had limited or inconsistent APIs, poor documentation, and minimal local support. Developers faced repeated challenges integrating payment systems into websites or apps. This technical complexity often forced businesses to hire specialized support or avoid online payments altogether.

4. Limited Access to Cross-Border and International PaymentsAfrican businesses had constrained access to global payment networks. International transactions were slow, expensive, and prone to failure, limiting opportunities for entrepreneurs to engage in global e-commerce.

5. Absence of Localized, Scalable Payment InfrastructureMany platforms were designed for Western markets and did not accommodate the realities of African commerce such as mobile money adoption, varied banking protocols, and inconsistent network reliability. This left a significant gap for solutions that could operate at scale while addressing local market needs.

Paystack addresses these challenges by providing a unified, developer-friendly platform that integrates card payments, bank transfers, and mobile money into a single system. Its automated settlements ensure merchants receive funds faster, alleviating cash flow challenges. The platform’s robust APIs, SDKs, and documentation simplify integration, while local support ensures reliability. Paystack also enables cross-border payments, giving African businesses access to international customers, and its infrastructure is designed for scalability, accommodating high transaction volumes and expansion across multiple countries. By solving these core issues, Paystack has enabled over 200,000 businesses in Nigeria and Ghana to participate efficiently in the digital economy, processing more than half of Nigeria’s online transactions and establishing a benchmark for pan-African payment infrastructure.

Milestones Achieved to-Date

Since its founding in 2015, Paystack has achieved a series of transformative milestones that underscore its role as a trailblazer in Africa’s fintech landscape. Its journey reflects rapid merchant adoption, technical innovation, strategic partnerships, international recognition, and a landmark corporate exit.

In its earliest stage, Paystack employed a strategic waiting-list approach to validate its product and gather insights from prospective merchants. Within the first year, the platform onboarded hundreds of merchants, ranging from small online stores to larger businesses seeking efficient payment solutions. By 2016, Paystack had processed over ₦1 billion in transactions, reflecting early market validation and the growing adoption of digital payments among Nigerian businesses.

A major milestone came in 2016 when Paystack was accepted into Y Combinator, providing both funding and critical mentorship. This accelerated the company’s development, helping refine its business model, optimize operations, and scale technical infrastructure to handle increasing transaction volumes. By 2017, Paystack had expanded its merchant base to over 7,000 businesses, processing tens of thousands of transactions monthly and solidifying its position as a leading payment platform in Nigeria.

From 2018 onward, Paystack’s growth became exponential. By late 2018, the company processed over ₦10 billion (≈$27 million) in monthly transactions, with more than 23,000 merchants actively using its services. This period also marked the expansion of its product offerings: Paystack integrated multiple payment channels, including card payments, mobile money, bank transfers, and recurring payments. It launched developer-friendly APIs and tools that simplified integration for businesses of all sizes, while introducing automated settlements to reduce cash-flow friction for merchants.

The acquisition of Paystack by Stripe in October 2020, reportedly exceeding $200 million, represented a watershed moment for African tech startups. It was one of the continent’s largest fintech exits, validating the market for scalable, pan-African payment infrastructure. By this time, Paystack was serving over 60,000 businesses across Nigeria and Ghana and processing more than half of Nigeria’s online payments. The acquisition also accelerated Paystack’s expansion into new African markets, including South Africa, Kenya, and Côte d’Ivoire, while strengthening its compliance and engineering capabilities to meet international standards.

Post-acquisition, Paystack continued to hit operational milestones. In 2022, it launched Paystack Virtual Accounts, enabling businesses to automate collections and manage payments with greater efficiency. By 2023, the platform processed a record ₦1 trillion in annual transactions, with bank transfers accounting for over 58% of volume, highlighting both adoption growth and evolving consumer behavior. Its engineering team expanded to over 200 full-time staff, reflecting the company’s commitment to scaling operations, product innovation, and customer support across multiple African markets.

In addition to transaction and merchant growth, Paystack has fostered critical strategic partnerships. It has collaborated with major banks, e-commerce platforms, and fintech companies to streamline onboarding, enable instant settlements, and expand digital payment literacy. The platform’s success has set benchmarks for regulatory engagement, demonstrating the feasibility of building compliant, pan-African payment infrastructure capable of servicing both local and international transactions.

Cumulatively, these milestones illustrate Paystack’s evolution from a lean startup solving merchant pain points to a pan-African payments infrastructure powerhouse. The company’s trajectory demonstrates the value of combining technical innovation, strategic partnerships, and scalable design to transform an entire sector and achieve one of Africa’s most significant fintech successes.

Lessons for Other Entrepreneurs

The journey of Paystack offers not just inspiration but a clear roadmap for building a Pan-African company with scalable impact. Each stage of its evolution reflects strategic choices and insights that founders across Africa can learn from.

1. Solve critical problems before chasing revenue.Paystack began by addressing real inefficiencies in the payments ecosystem long before thinking about large-scale revenue. By focusing on creating a functional, reliable platform for merchants, the founders prioritized value creation over immediate monetization. For entrepreneurs, the lesson is clear: building solutions that solve persistent, tangible problems creates long-term equity and positions a company for scalable growth.

2. Leverage deep domain expertise.Shola Akinlade’s experience with enterprise software and banking integrations gave him unique insight into systemic gaps. This expertise allowed Paystack to design a solution that worked within the realities of African infrastructure while meeting global standards. Entrepreneurs should understand that domain knowledge not only informs product design but also builds credibility with investors and partners.

3. Validate early and iterate continuously.Paystack’s initial waiting-list approach provided critical insights into merchant needs and adoption patterns. The founders used this feedback to refine their product before scaling. African entrepreneurs can learn that early validation and iterative design reduce risk and ensure market alignment.

4. Build for scalability and pan-African impact.While Nigeria was the initial market, Paystack was designed to operate across multiple African countries. This foresight allowed seamless expansion to Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, and beyond. Entrepreneurs should aim to build infrastructure that anticipates cross-border growth rather than designing solutions limited to a single market.

5. Prioritize trust, compliance, and operational rigor.Payments are sensitive, and trust is critical. Paystack invested heavily in regulatory compliance, security, and partnerships with banks, establishing credibility among merchants and international investors. African startups can learn that operational discipline and adherence to standards are as important as innovation when scaling.

6. Leverage partnerships as catalysts, not crutches.Strategic collaborations with banks, fintechs, and international investors helped accelerate Paystack’s growth. However, the company maintained operational independence and a strong internal roadmap. Entrepreneurs should use partnerships to complement capabilities and amplify impact, rather than relying on them as a substitute for vision.

7. Measure success by impact, not just revenue.Paystack’s influence extends beyond financial metrics. By enabling tens of thousands of African businesses to participate in digital commerce, it contributed significantly to the continent’s online economy. Founders should focus on measurable social and economic impact, which strengthens long-term positioning and investor confidence.

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