Okra, a Nigerian Startup that raised millions of dollars has shut down quietly while its founder relocates to UK for a job. They raised the money. They built the infrastructure. They signed the deals. But in the end, it wasn’t enough. Many people may ask: What kind of soil are we planting our best seeds into?
The company, according to reports, which raised over $16 million from global investors, officially ceased operations in May 2025. Fara Ashiru Jituboh, the co-founder and former CEO/CTO, is quoted as saying that:
“The company made the decision to wind down operations in May. It was an incredible journey; we built impactful technology, worked with some of the biggest brands across the continent, and helped pioneer open banking in Africa. I’m proud to have worked alongside some of the smartest and most talented people, and I’m deeply grateful for the community, customers, investors, and team who supported us over the past five years.”
How It Started
Founded in 2019, Okra set out to do something few African startups dared; build the core infrastructure powering open finance. Its APIs enabled users to link their Nigerian bank accounts to third-party applications in real time, offering services from identity verification to income and transaction data sharing.
That initiative attracted early backing, including $1 million from TLcom Capital and a $3.5 million seed round led by Susa Ventures, eventually pushing total funding beyond $16.5 million.
But scale didn’t guarantee survival. In October 2024, in response to high foreign exchange costs that made services like AWS and Azure increasingly expensive, Okra launched Nebula, a naira-denominated cloud platform aimed at local businesses.
Fara and her team were solving an invisible but critical problem: financial data access. In a continent where banks still lock away customer data like it’s gold, Okra was building bridges. Bridges between fintechs and banks. Between innovation and regulation. Between dreams and dollars.
How many more brilliant ideas will die in this country called Nigeria? How many more Fara Jitubohs will burn out trying to fix a country that doesn’t support its builders?
