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Our female fintech founder series today focuses on Temitope Omotolani, one of the remarkable ladies challenging gender inequality in the Nigerian tech space. She is one of the co-founders of Farmcrowdy and the current CEO of Crowdyvest.

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Crowdyvest is an impact-driven fintech platform that creates financial solutions for individuals and communities who wants to be financially free and committed to long-term growth. She has also single-handedly founded Ojawara and Fini–fini. The former is an online delivery service company for foodstuff and groceries. While the latter is a cleaning service company.

Early life/Education

Temi was born in the late 1980s in Lagos, Nigeria where she grew up. It was also where her father died in 1990 when she was merely 5 years old. Not long after that, her mother’s fabric and jewellery shop was razed down by a fire outbreak. Then her extended family members confiscated and sold all her father’s properties, leaving her and her mother with nothing. It was as if fate was determined to ruin Temi’s life. But instead of despairing, she went out of her way to start her first two ventures, “Gifted hands” at the age of 16 and Fini-fini both in Lagos.

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Gifted hands was a makeup program where she trained people in the art of makeup while Fini–fini is a cleaning company that cleans homes, churches and business places. During that time, she earned just enough to get her bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Lagos. Later, she would go on to Lagos Business School (LBS) and FATE Foundation’s Aspiring Entrepreneurship Program. Temi believes that the most sustainable way to eradicate poverty is through entrepreneurship. Hence her focus is on building businesses that solve economic problems while adding value to humanity.

Building Ojawara

One unique thing about Temi is that she can detect business opportunities. She had travelled to Jos to explore the opportunities there. She discovered that baskets of foodstuff like tomatoes, pepper and onions were relatively cheaper than in Lagos. So she bought them for sale to people in Lagos to make a profit. However, this venture encountered several challenges and she eventually founded Ojawara in 2012. Ojawara is an offline crowdfunding venture where people pay money for the buying of agricultural produce from rural areas. The products are then sold to people in urban parts of Lagos.

Farmcrowdy

Apart from the startups, she founded alone, she has partnered with other people. An example is Farmcrowdy which she co–founded with Akindele Philips, Anazodo Ifeanyi, Akumah Onyeka, and Jimoh Mayegun in 2016. The startup simply connects investors to farming opportunities within Nigeria. Temi had served asitsoperating officer. During this time, she supervised over 25,000 farmers spread across 14 states in Nigeria until working there became boring.

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She even refused the managing director position and decided to shift from agriculture entirely. When farmcrowdy started a subsidiary company Crowdyvest, she took the opportunity and joined the company. Crowdyvest is a fintech company or rather a cooperative that funds projects in various industries ranging from real estate to education to oil and gas. It also features a savings account for its members. The feature was introduced in 2019 when Temi became CEO. Since then, the firm has raised 11 billion Naira in investment capital, funded 30 projects, and boasts over 100,000 members.

Temi is still the CEO of crowdyvest. She now spends her time handling the daily affairs of the company. Alongside dealing with investors who are sceptical about investments on crowdyvest. She also wants to own multiple businesses, sit on multiple boards, and run multiple non-profit projects that benefit people beyond Nigeria. She is an ample example that when life gives you a lemon. You make lemonade out of it.

Featured Image Source: Temitope Omotolani-Social Media Week Lagos
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This article was first published on 27th August 2022

eyimegwu-ekene

I am an accomplished content creator and recently delved into technical writing. I enjoy using my skills to contribute to the exciting technological advances and create awareness of evolving technological trends in Nigeria.

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