Tope Alabi is the co-founder of Afriex, a digital asset exchange for Africa. Prior to Afriex, Tope worked at ConsenSyS and IDEO CoLab as a software engineer and fellow, respectively. Tope’s experience in the tech industry has given their a unique perspective on how to build digital products that are both user-friendly and scalable.
When Tope Alabi moved back to Nigeria in 2019 after 20 years in the U.S., he knew he wanted to start a company applying what he learned working at blockchain consultant Consensys.
He and future co-founder John Obirije started testing a number of ideas ranging from a hip hop chat bot to a trivia game — all of which failed. But they realized throughout the trial and error that they consistently ran into the same problem: trying to pay business expenses for the various upstarts with money tied up in bank accounts in the U.S.
They decided to create a money transfer system that utilized blockchain to enable users to send funds by converting them into stablecoins — which are cryptocurrencies backed by reserve assets.
This process makes the transaction free and quicker than an existing service like Wise which charges a 6.45% fee and can take a few days to process. They launched the service, Afriex, in 2019 and the traction was instant.
“Things took off from there,” Alabi tells Forbes. “I don’t know if it was the pandemic but we really started growing fast.” The service originally focused on Nigeria and has since expanded into Uganda, Kenya and Ghana.
Good job Tope!!
Please note:
- To nominate other high achievers of African Descent Worldwide, visit http://www.mipad.org/nominate
- To become a MIPADian, enroll for Connectology: A Practical Guide to Connect for Success www.mipad.org/connectology
- To begin to think and operate like a true MIPADian, enroll for our Online Course (On-Demand 24/7 starting $99), Sign Up – bit.ly/BBVofYOU
