By Ghazali Ibrahim
Nigerian open banking startup Okra, once touted as the “Plaid of Africa,” has quietly shut down operations after nearly five years in the country’s growing fintech space.
The company, which raised over $16 million from global investors including Accenture Ventures and Susa Ventures, ceased activities in May 2025 amid mounting operational costs, regulatory delays, and a failure to secure additional funding.
Founded in 2019 by Fara Ashiru Jituboh and David Peterside, Okra built financial APIs that allowed banks and fintechs to share consumer data securely.
The firm had positioned itself to take advantage of Nigeria’s upcoming open banking framework. But with the Central Bank’s full implementation of the policy delayed until August 2025, Okra’s business model hit a roadblock at a critical moment.
The challenges deepened when the naira plunged further in late 2024, driving up cloud costs in dollars.
In response, the company launched Nebula, a cloud platform priced in naira to cut costs. But insiders say the pivot required fresh investment that never came.
Okra also faced internal leadership shifts. Co-founder Peterside exited in 2022, and Ashiru Jituboh stepped aside in May this year before joining UK-based Kernel.
With no formal announcement or successor named, the leadership vacuum contributed to the company’s final collapse.
The shutdown was confirmed only through a brief LinkedIn post, leaving partners and customers in the dark.
Rival platforms such as Mono and Stitch which raised $17.6 million and $52 million respectively appear poised to fill the gap left by Okra.
But the incident raises broader concerns about the vulnerability of African fintech startups operating in uncertain regulatory and macroeconomic environments.
