Odunayo Eweniyi cofounded several innovative startups while striving to improve people’s lives in West Africa, all before the age of 30. Her work has garnered her international recognition and made her into one of the biggest names in West Africa’s tech industry.
Early Life and Education
Odunayo Eweniyi was born and raised in Abeokuta, the capital city of Ogun State in Nigeria. She is the oldest of three daughters born to a pair of university professors. As a child, she enjoyed reading and science, and she says her parents instilled in her the confidence and creativity to be herself.
Eweniyi also learned from her parents the importance of personal responsibility. In an interview with CareerFoundry.com, she says that her father’s mantra of “You are all you have” has stuck with her into adulthood.
Eweniyi at one point aspired to be a doctor, and at other times her family assumed she would follow her parents’ career path into academia. When she was a girl, however, her father bought the family a computer. Eweniyi says she was fascinated by the machine.
She went on to study computer engineering at Covenant University, an Ogun State school where her 100-student class included only 12 other women. It was a gender imbalance that she would later work to close as a tech entrepreneur.
Early Career
After graduating from Covenant University with first-class honors in 2013, Eweniyi began her career with positions as a social medial manager, as well as a tech writer and editor. One of her jobs found her working under Somto Ifezue, with whom she later joined to establish PushCV.
Founded in late 2013, PushCV sorts through job applications to help employers determine the most-qualified candidates. The Nigerian company attracted significant venture capital funding, and its success helped Eweniyi to begin to make a name for herself in the tech industry. She remained with PushCV until 2016, when she moved on to another venture.
PiggyVest
That venture was PiggyVest, a first-of-its-kind savings and investment app in West Africa. Eweniyi cofounded the company in 2016 after a colleague saw a viral photo of a wooden box in which a woman had stored a year of savings.
Believing the concept of a piggy bank could be digitized, PiggyVest cofounder Joshua Chibueze brought the idea to Eweniyi. Two weeks later, the pair had designed the platform and subsequently released it to the world.
The startup faced challenges in its early days. Many people in Nigeria did not trust digital platforms, especially ones that handled money. Potential investors also doubted PiggyVest could compete with established banks.
Then there was the problem of simply getting the word out about the app. According to Eweniyi, digital penetration in Nigeria was especially low at the time of PiggyVest’s inception.
The company did attract some early users, however, and with Eweniyi serving as COO, PiggyVest spent its first year working to earn those users’ trust. After approximately a year of using the platform, these early adopters began withdrawing their money. Doing so successfully—and having earned interest to boot—led many to share their positive experiences online.
The word-of-mouth marketing approach—combined with PiggyVest offering 1,000 of the Nigerian currency Naira for each successful referral—proved successful. As of November of 2022, the platform boasts approximately 2.3 million users. According to Eweniyi, PiggyVest’s future will involve incorporating new features with the goal of making other financial services available and accessible to everyone.
FirstCheck Africa
In 2021, while busy handling the operations of PiggyVest, Eweniyi became an entrepreneur again when she cofounded FirstCheck Africa. This angel fund arrived at a time when women continue to be underrepresented in the tech industry around the world. Disturbingly, this problem has in some ways has only worsened in recent years, as funding for female entrepreneurs dropped significantly in 2020.
Through FirstCheck Africa, Eweniyi is looking to close this gap. Her angel fund provides money to female entrepreneurs who are in the earliest stages of establishing a tech startup, thereby giving these women the resources to develop their products.
Beyond providing early-stage funding, Eweniyi and her cofounder, Eloho Omame, offer open, honest, and prompt feedback to all applicants, including to those whom they have decided not to award funding. According to Eweniyi, another of her father’s lessons was to work hard while never forgetting about those around you. Through FirstCheck Africa, she strives to pass on her success by creating a pipeline that allows other female entrepreneurs to follow in her footsteps.
Other Ventures and Awards
Eweniyi has similarly worked to empower women through Wine & Whine Nigeria and the Feminist Coalition, two nonprofits she helped to launch. In 2020, in response to the violence perpetrated by Nigeria’s controversial Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), the Feminist Coalition announced its first project, #EndSARS. The campaign raised $1.1 million and became a global phenomenon.
In recognition of her efforts with #EndSARS, Eweniyi has been featured in Vogue, Bloomberg, and Time magazine. She has also earned recognition from Forbes Africa, which in 2019 included her on its 30 under 30 Technology list. In 2022, Forbes Woman Africa honored her with its Technology and Innovation Award.
Odunayo Eweniyi – A Deep Dive on the Inspiring Nigerian Tech Leader
