African Business Stories
African Business Stories is the go-to podcast for insights into the women shaping Africa’s business landscape. Africa is one of the world’s most promising frontiers for growth and innovation—and women are at the heart of this transformation.
Hosted by Akaego Okoye, this podcast spotlights female entrepreneurs who are breaking barriers, scaling businesses, and driving economic development across the continent. Through bold conversations, we explore funding, scaling strategies, digital transformation, and industry innovations—equipping you with insights, practical tools, and inspiration to navigate your own entrepreneurial journey.
When women win, economies thrive. These stories amplify success, challenge narratives, and create a blueprint for the next generation of female leaders in Africa and beyond.
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African Business Stories
Chioma Okotcha-Faloughi: Co-founder and COO Rivy - Hard Stops, Bold Restarts: Rebuilding After Setbacks
Resilience takes on new meaning in my conversation with Chioma Okotcha-Faloughi, Co-founder of Rivi (formerly PayHippo), whose entrepreneurial journey embodies the grit required to build transformative businesses in Africa.
Chioma never planned to become an entrepreneur. With her computer science background and experience spanning finance, policy, and education, she initially saw herself driving change through government channels. But a chance conversation about Nigeria's credit access problems led to co-founding PayHippo in 2019, where they moved from concept to customers in just weeks. After completing Y Combinator and raising $4 million, they were supporting thousands of small businesses with crucial financing.
Then came the storm. A devastating fraud attack combined with the departure of both co-founders pushed the company to the brink. "I had investors ask why I didn't just walk away," Chioma reveals. Her decision to stay and fight – while managing a newborn at home – ultimately led to one of Africa's most remarkable business pivots. Recognizing Nigeria's energy crisis following subsidy removals, she transformed the company into Rivi, financing clean energy solutions for businesses across the country.
What makes Chioma's story particularly powerful is her transparency about the darkest moments. From letting go 60% of her workforce to months without paying herself, she shares the painful realities rarely discussed in entrepreneurship circles. "Before this, I was just a nice tech founder. After hitting rock bottom, I became a fully certified entrepreneur," she laughs. Her advice to women building in Africa resonates deeply: "Stay the course, don't give up too soon, drill deeper."
Whether you're an entrepreneur, investor, or simply fascinated by Africa's business evolution, this episode offers rare insights into building purpose-driven companies that survive existential threats. Follow Rivi's continuing journey at @RiviHQ and subscribe for more stories of African business innovation.
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With more female entrepreneurs than any other region in the world. Women are at the heart of Africa's transformation. Welcome to African Business Stories, the show that amplifies the voices of female entrepreneurs shaping Africa's business landscape. I'm your host, ekego Koye. Here we explore bold ideas, strategies for scaling and the realities of building businesses that drive economic development. These stories will provide insights into Africa's business landscape, practical tools for growth and the inspiration to navigate your own entrepreneurial journey. Be sure to subscribe, rate and share. Neural journey. Be sure to subscribe, rate and share On the show. Today I chat with Chioma Okocha Faloyi, co-founder of Rivi, formerly PayHippo, a Nigerian fintech company turned clean energy finance innovator. We talk about her childhood in Port Harcourt and her early career journey. Innovator. We talk about her childhood in Port Harcourt and her early career journey building a startup during uncertain times, surviving co-founder breakups, raising over $15 million in funding, and how her company is now financing Africa's clean energy transition. It's a conversation about grit, reinvention and purpose-driven leadership. Let's get into it, hi, choma. Welcome to African Business Stories, hi.
Speaker 2:Kato great to be here. Thank you for having me. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I remember that I met you like so many years ago I think it was like what, 2019 or something I can't even remember now, 19 or something I can't even remember now and just randomly in Cairo, and it's been just amazing to follow your business growth and your pivot, and I am super excited to sit down with you today and learn more about your business and how you've been doing over the years. Welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you, I do remember Cairo. I think it was after the pandemic or just before. Oh was it. Those years have merged into each other.
Speaker 1:I know it feels like a long time.
Speaker 2:I'm happy to be here and share the journey and what we've been doing since our catch-up in Cairo.
Speaker 1:So I always start from the very beginning. That's what I say. One of my favorite all-time movies is Sound of Music and I love that line. Let's start from the very beginning. So, just taking it back to your childhood, I know you grew up in Potakot, which is in Nigeria, the oil capital of the country, and I wonder what those years were like for you. Were you a shell kid?
Speaker 2:I was born in the mid-80s and my parents, our family, was based out of Papakot. My dad was in the oil and gas industry. My mom was a teacher. She said she's a teacher for life. So I should say she is a teacher. And so I grew up in quite a sheltered small community of trusted friends, family, strong family values. And then I would say having a mother as an educator was also incredible in the sense of her being very specific on just character, building, confidence, the small minute things as well as the actual math and English. So it was a great. I look back with so much fondness and a lot of thankfulness to have grown up almost in a sub-urban, like a small urban community, and made all my mistakes, learned a lot of lessons, built myself internally before being thrown out into the world.
Speaker 1:Wow. So what would you say if I asked what was one of your fondest childhood memories?
Speaker 2:what would you say that is there is so many, and I think anyone listening today who has grown up in PH would agree we had a club where we would go swimming, riding bikes, tennis, and it was great because you would see your friends. Our parents trusted the clubs to drop us there early in the morning and maybe pick you up early evening, and so you had the whole day just being free. There was a lot of green, less polluted and just running around popcorn and suey and all the life.
Speaker 1:So what did you think you would be when you were young, growing up around the oil and gas space? Did you think that would form part of your future at all?
Speaker 2:Actually not In engineering. My dad was certainly throwing the engineering joke like oh, you're so good at math, I think you should be an engineer. However, I really wanted to be a doctor. I was obsessed.
Speaker 2:And I had this very clear focus that that was what I was going to do from when I was like nine or ten, and medicine was it for me. I was on track, I just loved. I'm not sure what about it, but maybe again it was the 90s. It was being a doctor the most prestigious thing, I don't know. But I was also pretty good with science. I liked, liked biology, chemistry. I was a bit of a nerd, let's just say that now.
Speaker 2:But then, unfortunately, my mom had an accident when I was about 13 or 14. And I was around her quite a lot and just helping her navigate her healing journey, and it impacted me in a very strange way. I suddenly couldn't bear the thought of someone being in pain, and every time she'd be in pain I would have the exact same pain. I'm not sure what it's called, but there's a name for it, and I think it was just a lot of empathy in the moment. And I remember mom just saying to me I don't think this medicine is going to quite work out well for you. Maybe you should look at other options. And so I sat with my dad and I was like, okay, now the engineering thing sounds like the next best option. And so engineering came up, computer science came up, and that's how I got out of medicine unfortunately.
Speaker 1:So you then went on to study computer science. Okay, and what was that like for you?
Speaker 2:It was strange in a little way because this was 2000 and I graduated 2001. By 2002, I was in a Nigerian university called Babcock University and I was doing a pre-degree program to study computer science in my focus, from biology and just from biology, right the human body, learning around that to being a lot more focused with my math and further math and all the numbers and binary. But I do remember that it was the coding. Languages were very different then. I forget. I think it was basic, I think it was C sharp I think, at that time, but it was very different from what we're doing now with Python and all the AI stuff. But I liked it as well.
Speaker 2:I think I'd say I was doing pretty well at school. I had mixed my programs so that I could graduate not just knowing about computer science but I was also going to go into taking ACCA, which is like the accounting certification, just so that I also had a finance exposure at the time. This wasn't a solo thought, it was more. Babcock was very good at making sure you balance. I think they built the university system in a very American way where you would have your major and your minor, and so I was there for about two and a half years.
Speaker 2:I was going into my third year and I suddenly had this aha moment that I wanted to leave Babcock. I just didn't think that I was really thriving there as a person.
Speaker 1:My sister- was there and she was thriving.
Speaker 2:I didn't think I was, and so I decided I was going to go to England, didn't have a conversation with my parents and make this decision. I was doing all my applications online with my pocket money. I did everything and then I got my admission letter and I remember I went home that Christmas and I said I'm not going back to Babcock, I'm going to start school in England in September. Mind you, I was on a scholarship in Babcock and to this day I can't really see how my parents transitioned from. That is a crazy thought to okay, let's go. All I do know is in September I was in England.
Speaker 2:Um, and I have interviewed them countless times like how did you take your 16 year old that seriously to make that sort of decision on her own, and how did you?
Speaker 1:trust it.
Speaker 2:They haven't really been very clear with the answers. That's how I found myself in England and I started my degree all over again, so I went from going to my third year to like going to my first year of university. But because I'd had a university experience locally, I was mature. I was really focused on what I wanted to do and what outcomes. I wanted to just experience everything about this new environment and that's how I went to England for my degree completion.
Speaker 1:So what did your career then look like? Because I see that you've done so many different things and I just wonder what your initial career was when you completed your degree.
Speaker 2:Yes, I have to give a bit of credit to the careers lady at my uni. When I arrived I said to her oh, I want to do the major minor. Can I do accounting? Because I was interested in a little bit of finance and I thought it was math, I like numbers. And I remember her saying if you have to do that, you might have to completely change your major. And I was willing to. I was like, OK, what does that take? And I remember she just looked at me. She said please do not do that.
Speaker 2:Um, this is your undergrad. Take this as your springboard. Right, you'll come out here. You've learned all this technical knowledge around things. You've got all this experience. This is your springboard. When you're done here, you can literally fly and do anything that you wanted to do. And I kept that in the back of my mind. So, so when I finished uni, I really wanted to work in the investment banks. I was applying to Lehman Brothers and I had interviews and I still remember after my interview was when Lehman Brothers shot down. I thought, oh, maybe this is the time. And unfortunately I did that and I got into finance. I would say finance more from an advisory perspective. So I wasn't doing core accounting but more around advisory working with. I remember I did. I worked with SMEs when I was at the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
Speaker 2:I did some revenue analysis with a company in the UK before I moved back to Nigeria and those experiences for me were very fundamental One, just learning how to work, which is obvious, but two I think that's where I started to understand the different landscapes, so understanding what the UK, what culture was like, what the needs were. And then coming to Nigeria for NYSE working and then seeing where the problems were, opportunities were, challenges were, and in that moment I started doing a lot of volunteering and working with non-profits locally on the weekend and I had an aha moment where I said, okay, if I was going to make change in Nigeria because we're always having that conversation as Nigerians one of the most effective ways would be around policy. I need to get into politics, I can quickly change things faster. And so I went to grad school and studied public policy. Yeah, that's it around education.
Speaker 1:Wow, so was that before or after your stint with the Tony Blair Institute? Oh, this was before.
Speaker 2:So I had the experience working in the stock exchange and, oh God, I forget the other states that I worked while I was in Nigeria. And then I had this aha moment when I was in France. I was exposed to capstone consulting. So where you're working on real product and projects while you're at school. And I worked with the French development agency. I worked with the OECD post grad school and, funny enough, both projects were sort of looking at Africa. So with the AFD I was working on, like a credit project, public and private partnerships in the southwest of Nigeria, and with the OECD I was looking at West African states, sahel and West African states.
Speaker 2:And so again I felt, look, every time I left Nigeria, every time I did something globally, there was always this pullback into solving like a lot of the challenges that existed here and what can I do here? So when I was in grad school I interned with Tony Elumelu. Funny enough, I've worked with both Tony Elumelu Foundation and he was very much around the. He was building a concept around what does capitalism look like in Africa and how can we make sure that we're conscious, we're impactful and we're just not building businesses for profit. I set that up with the team, built the tenets of what that would look like, went back to grad school, then came back and one of the best experiences I had was setting up the Teach for All network in Nigeria.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I set up Teach for Nigeria with the CEO and founder at the time, and the whole concept was how can we get more Nigerians who are, who have great degrees, finish top of their class, how can we get them to give back to the education sector before maybe going off to many other things? Because one of the issues we had in Nigeria was just that death of quality teachers, unfortunately and so I did that for two and a half three years and it was a fantastic experience. I worked in the north and the south west of Nigeria. Again, education was the problem. So one of the ways that I've always framed everything that I've done is what is the problem and what is the solution?
Speaker 1:I'm providing. So there you are, straight out of uni working in finance, moving into policy, working in the education space, and then, at what point do you then decide that entrepreneurship is the path to go?
Speaker 2:I would say entrepreneurship chose me again. Like I said, for being a wanted to be a doctor. Since then, learning about computer science and all these things, I never actually thought I was a business person. I tried running a few businesses in uni very easy, small mom and pop type of things but I never really quite got it.
Speaker 2:So for Pei Hippo, I left Teach for Nigeria at the time and I was very much into playing sports just playing flag football in Lagos in the new community and I had met my co-founder because we were playing on the same team and we were just having a conversation around. He's American and a Nigerian and we're talking about the good things about Nigeria and the things that need help and the challenges. And I shared my experience with the public-private partnership I had worked on as a consultant where I was looking at the credit system in Nigeria and specifically on that project I was looking at housing credit credit for sorry credit for buying homes and challenges that that project experienced, and he, on the other hand, had been working with a lending company locally and just randomly, he said hey, I think there's something here.
Speaker 2:You understand the problem really well. I understand what the solution could be. Let's start a company. This was June 2019. And by July 2019, we had literally started a company. Our best customer either in July or August. Yeah, it was pretty much like goal. There was no moment to be afraid. There was no moment to say actually I think this is a crazy idea. I'm going to jump in.
Speaker 1:So were you doing this as a side hustle or did you leave your job to start PayHippo?
Speaker 2:So I had left my job at the time, but I still had my eyes on policy and so I was still applying for jobs with the Tony Blair Institute and with other organizations when this came up. And so I think even when I started it, I don't think I fully realized the scale of the magnitude. I still saw it as, again, there's a problem in front of me. I've been called up to dream up a solution to implement it, and so I took that approach, not necessarily okay, I'm going to start a company. So the second it got really serious. I said, okay, this is now my policy drive. I'm still going to make impact. I'm still going to build a responsible, profitable business. Rather than doing it from the seat of government, I'm going to be attacking this from the private sector.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. Do you still play flag football? I?
Speaker 2:used to. I played until I had my baby in 2022. And then I came back and my legs aren't just moving as quickly as they should, I know, and everyone on the team feels like they're 18. I was like, if I get injured, I'm going to pay the ultimate price. I do want to go back, but I've shifted my game to tennis now, so I play tennis once a week, sometimes twice a week.
Speaker 1:So tell us a bit about PayHippo. We're coming to what the company is today, but tell us a bit about PayHippo.
Speaker 2:So PayHippo started with the big problem in front of it, which was how do we ensure that small businesses in Nigeria can access credit?
Speaker 2:It seems like a very easy problem, but it's a huge one. At the time, a lot of SMEs weren't successfully accessing credit from your traditional financial institutions and it wasn't a deliberate move. It was really from a space of we don't know how to underwrite small businesses, we don't know how to verify who they are, we don't know how to really keep track of their revenue, their inflows and their outflows. Some of these businesses are moving a lot of money, have a lot of customers, but they still run their accounting and inventory system in a very informal way, and so the traditional financial institutions were just like the risk is too much.
Speaker 2:Fortunately for us, I think we came into the market where there were other startups and other innovators who were tackling different problems. So you had startups who were looking at an identity issue how can we ensure that identity streamlined across Nigeria? People like UBC they are. You also had people who were building software for small businesses to help them organize their transactions, organize their accounting, in such a way that now they have all the documents and information that they need to access the so-called credit. So by the time we came into the market and we said we're going to build an automated under that would define a business owner.
Speaker 2:Are you who you say you are? They would also look at their numbers and say, based on what you do as a business owner, are you who you say you are? They would also look at their numbers and say, based on what you do as a business over the past six months, 12 months, 24 months, this is how much money you need. This is how much money you can access on a financial platform, and this is just to make sure that, as we're giving credit, you also have the ability to repay what we didn't want to do into the market was just throw money at business owners to repay.
Speaker 2:what we didn't want to do into the market was just throw money at business owners because, as well, you don't want to increase defaults where businesses don't understand how credit works and then they don't run into problems. Right, remember, this is a new credit environment, nigeria. Nigeria is more like a heavy pay up front type of was, more like that you want to buy a car, you buy it upfront. You're paying your rent, you pay upfront for a year. We had never really built this credit system that I believe small businesses needed to expand to scale, especially if you were a distributor or an importer where you're buying things large scale, not having access to funds could greatly slow down or even extinguish your business. And so we came in and we built that system out and made it automated.
Speaker 2:But we were also able to feed other companies from what we were learning, and one of them was at the credit bureau that now exists in Nigeria, just learning from companies like us. So you have a great customer who's steady with their repayments, they go on this bureau as great with credit. So you have a customer who's defaulting, they go on that bureau as poor credit, so other organizations whether that's car, fintech or housing credit systems could also feed from the bureau and say, hey, is this customer credit worthy? And so I think doing that from 2019 to about 2022. Just building up that system was incredible. We supported over 35 000 businesses, which is worth at least um 17 million dollars the period, and I was just proud of the fact that SMEs were finally getting that recognition that they're actually viable businesses that make up quite a lot of the economy in Nigeria, quite a lot of the GDP, employ a large percentage of the working force. Not everybody works with the banks or the oil and gas industry, right, so it was good to see that diversity happening.
Speaker 1:But you spoke about going from idea to implementation in one month and not having any time to be afraid, which I think is very powerful. Were there any things that you did as a first-time founder to shore up your own personal confidence in starting this business?
Speaker 2:I think to give myself a bit of credit. I think I love challenges, right. Show up your own personal confidence in starting this business, I think, to give myself a bit of credit. I think I love challenges, right. So I think when someone or something is a no, I'm like, oh, I want to figure this out.
Speaker 2:But I think, in more real terms, having a co-founder at the time was extremely valuable, because now it's almost like having a free accountability coach, right? Okay, so you're doing marketing, I'm doing finance, you're doing PR, I'm doing tech. You're able to complement each other. And also when one person might be feeling nervous, the other person is like we've got this, let's go. So I think in those initial days I always say having a business partner was definitely one of the reasons why we were able to move as quickly as we did. I don't know, maybe if I was alone I might have said, oh, I need to draw up a business plan. Or now I need to email 10 of my advisors to see if they think it's valuable. And time is going and your confidence is dying off and by the time you're ready to start, you're so exhausted. It's like I'm not doing this anymore.
Speaker 1:So that definitely helped and I know that you guys did the Y Combinator twice. I read we applied twice. What was the thinking behind doing that and what were your takeaways from that experience?
Speaker 2:wow. It was a great experience because when we started, none of us my co-founder had built a business before, but we realized that what we were doing was large scale One. We were going to be playing in the financial ecosystem without as a new player, more so as a startup player, so not a new player that's coming in with a commercial license to get a bank right. You're coming in and you're trying to create a solution, but you're going to be working in this very heavily regulated sector. Also, we also knew that we needed validation around our idea, and by that I mean one of the things accelerator programs or introducer programs provide for you. They give you the space to test, to really think about your business, to have other entrepreneurs look at your business and go maybe, oh, how about this? Have you thought about that? Nobody ever tells you that's a bad idea, but they're able to scrutinize it in a way that gets you thinking.
Speaker 2:And I always say that one of the great things I had at Y Combinator was I remember there was a point where one of our advisors said to us your business is dead. What killed it? And he wanted us to think about that. And honestly, I couldn't think about that I was like what's my business going to die and I'm going to put in everything. What do you mean? It's going to die, but it was helpful. So we thought about everything from co-founder split to running out of cash to just simply having a bad idea, and it helped, helped us tackle. If you get to that point, are you also going to be bold enough and brave enough to either shut it down or to pivot, or to do it in a confident way? So that was one of the things I learned from there, but another plus was also just the exposure, I think. As an African fintech at the time, we were then exposed to lots of investors in the US and across the world who were interested in what we were doing and who were very excited about the African market.
Speaker 1:You then went on a year later to raise. I think you raised a million pre-seed and three million in your seed round. Am I correct with those numbers?
Speaker 2:That's correct. Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 1:Do you think that going through the accelerator program was part of your success at raising so early?
Speaker 2:I would speak about this, but I will also give a bit of a disclaimer, in the sense that the ecosystem has matured so much from 2020 or 2019. There's so much that we're thinking about now than what we're thinking about then. So, for instance, in 2020, 2021, there was a lot of heavy conversation around revenue and around your valuation as a company, so everyone and their mother was obsessed with these metrics, whereas if you speak to real established entrepreneurs, your focus is really around profitability and sustainability. Is your business making money to get the revenue? So you make all this revenue, but when you take that all your costs are you a profitable company? Are you making losses? So I think at that time, we were super focused on the revenue and we're doing incredible revenue, and I think that also just comes from the Nigerian market. We have the market size. Nigerians are entrepreneurs by heart, and so, if you're talking about SMEs that are viable, we had the customer base.
Speaker 2:And so our numbers were great and then obviously that was in a way that got people excited. So I do think doing the Y Combinator program at that time was definitely a springboard for us locally and also internationally as well, and I would say it definitely contributed to investors looking at us.
Speaker 2:So when you're at the Y Combinator, you actually have a pitch day and on that day it's open to investors to come in and listen to your pitch, and so those are people that I was in a room with that maybe ordinarily I may not have been able to get to them so quickly, so I'd say it helped.
Speaker 1:Still on the Y Combinator. Just a last question. So what made the difference between I think you applied in 2020 and didn't get in, but then you got in 2021. So for founders, female founders, who are listening to this and contemplating this accelerator or any other accelerator program, what made the difference in those two years for you?
Speaker 2:I think the first time we applied, maybe we weren't as ready and, by that, really understanding what our business model was and really understanding how we're going to make money. And I still remember our interviewed with Michael Siebel and he asked us in terms of raising money for lending business. One of the questions he asked us was okay, say, I'm somebody else and my father is a multi-billionaire and I can raise this money in one day and I decide to copy and paste your business model. How do you survive that? And I still remember we didn't have an answer. I was just like, oh. So he said I need you. It was really, he was very gracious.
Speaker 2:Go think about that. Go really think about what your lines of death and equity will be long term. Um, and at the time I don't even think we fully got it until where we are now, as rivi which we'll talk about question was around how do you build a sustainable business where you're not relying on constant equity radius and you're able to become profitable? I think that was his underlying question. And so by the next time we applied, we were in a better position. We understood the market a bit more. What I would say in terms of advising, I don't think any door is permanently locked. Right, it might be closed, but it doesn't mean it's locked. So you go back again and you're locked. And it's also learning for you as a founder.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that. So in 2022, you guys are like on a roll You've built this business or you're building this business. You raise money, but then you go through some shocks in Q4, I think, in 2022. Can you talk to us just a bit about what happened and how you navigated that challenge?
Speaker 2:That was one of the hardest things of my life. I had gone off to have my baby and so many things had changed in the business. I think, just from an operations perspective again, we were probably our vision. We were starting to lose track, or lose sight of our vision, rather, and so a lot of mistakes were happening. In that season, unfortunately for us, we were hit by a fraud ring and prior to this, a lot of our investors had wondered so you're operating in a financial sector anywhere in the world. This is one of the things that could potentially happen to you. We thought we were ready, like every small business, right, we had limited resources, we didn't get time, and so we were hit by fraud ring. We lost a substantial amount of money and after that experience, the business, because of how much it was hit, basically went into a time of survival.
Speaker 2:So some of the things that we had to do. We had to let go of employees, which, till this day, is just the worst feeling. I think if you talk to any entrepreneur, this is the hardest part, like rebuilding your business, pivoting, all of that it's easier, but telling people that, hey, we're having to downsize, we're having to shift focus, we can no longer do XYZ, so we had to let go of about 60% of our workforce. That was really really tough, you know, having people sort of blame you or hold you responsible or just cry in the exit interviews.
Speaker 2:It was really hard, and I remember saying to someone prior to this I was just a nice tech founder. It was such a cool journey, and when I hit this roadblock, I remember telling everyone now I'm an entrepreneur, fully certified, because now I have hit rock bottom and this is the test. I spoke to one of my investors and I said I don't think we can do this anymore. I'm going to leave. And he said to me then you're not an entrepreneur, so that means you're only here for the joyride. This is your test. This is the moment where we know whether you really have it in you to run a business come rain or sunshine. And so while we were working on that, about Q1 in 2023, my co-founder, who we had initially started the business with, decided that he wanted to do something else and he was no longer aligned with the vision. So it was blow number two. Any founder listening to this, or any business person with a partner business partner listening to this, knows what this means.
Speaker 2:It's almost like a divorce legally, emotionally and so we're trying to clean up one mess and this is the second mess, and so for me at that time, I was afraid, I was nervous. What's going to happen? How do investors look at us? One of the things we were always told was investors invest in people. They don't necessarily invest in the idea, and so for me, I just thought are they going to feel that we failed them? We weren't responsible founders, and so there was just that heavy weight of responsibility at the time, and while I was still dealing with that, my second co-founder then decided to leave as well. Oh, dear god.
Speaker 2:He decided to leave in that moment, and I do understand in hindsight. The sinking ship to some people is jump on, get on a lifeboat and save yourself, or also just let it sink and do something else. It's going to fail anyway. But I had a different mindset at the time and I thought we hadn't tried enough before we did that white flag and I said to my co-founders we needed to try and fight for this and then, if it sinks, we know we tried versus just seeing a sign that oh, maybe the ship's falling apart a little bit, let's just let it die. And so I made a promise to myself to stay on a flight and I didn't do this alone.
Speaker 2:Thankfully, I had a fantastic we had a fantastic CFO at the time and I call him our crisis CFO Because from day one when he started was when the fraud happened and all these other things that kept happening. And I would look at him and just say I'm sure you regret taking our job off Now. You've just come into a nightmare. But he was a more seasoned financial expert and I don't think he was afraid by what he was seeing, just based on his experience. And so, before my co-founders left, we all agreed. I mean, we agreed on this one thing to make him work in CFO2, to become the CEO. I had just had a baby. I didn't have the capacity, I just knew that I needed someone with a fresh mind to take the seat, and then I stayed on to manage the team, managing investors, stakeholders. They needed a familiar face, right Um, and just steady the ship from from beneath while he, kind of, you know, sits on the top and and runs the day-to-day strategic vision for the company wow, that's a lot.
Speaker 1:Trauma. That is a lot. So why did you decide to stay on? Because one of your co-founders is the one who initially said let's do this. Why did you decide to stay on?
Speaker 2:I genuinely love Africa, I genuinely love Nigeria, and for me, building this business wasn't a show. It was, again, a solution to a problem that I felt like I hadn't fully finished building, and I think, just looking back on all my years childhood, teenage years I think I built a level of resilience and grit that I didn't realize I I had because I never needed to call on it till this moment. Um.
Speaker 2:I also thought around stakeholder management. Um, I had investors, I had the ecosystem in Lagos. I'm a Nigerian. This is my home, this is my base walking away. There's nowhere else to walk to. Where do I walk to? This was it for me, and again I needed the story to go full circle, so I wanted to finish what I'd started. So, even if it died, at least I had seen it through till the end.
Speaker 1:I love that. And what was your support system like, because those must have been some very trying times. What was your support system like?
Speaker 2:My poor husband, my mother, my siblings and, I'd say, my son at the time definitely got the hit because every day, I think I was crying every day for a while. Just, I was exhausted, I was burnt out. I had read about burnout but I didn't realize what it was. And just having the guys literally listen to me. Red Tech found us, so they could only provide so much advice, but they gave me space to rant, to vent, to clear my head and then to show up the next day for my team, for my investors, for everyone, and so I'm really thankful that I definitely had them in my life.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. And how did you manage your investors?
Speaker 2:I was with Dami, my business partner now, and I got thankful credit for it. But that was tough that was tough. We had investors who were very upset with us for good reasons.
Speaker 2:We had investors who didn't see this coming. So they were blindsided and completely, completely just didn't see it coming, and so they felt if you were in trouble, why didn't you tell us on time? They felt like you could have done something on time. I think for dami and I, transparency from the moment we just knew what was happening, we started to signal me um being as transparent as we could.
Speaker 2:Obviously, in hindsight, there's more things you could have done. Maybe communicated better with our employees. We tried, but there were some times where we were also inserting. So communicating when you're inserting it's better not to communicate because you don't know whether you're going left or right. But we tried our best to communicate with our stakeholders and I remember sometimes I would say so we had our private advisory uh, kind of stakeholders, like one or two of our investors, who were sort of I'd say our advisors and we'd say guys, we only have one month runway, we don't have any money company, we don't know what's going to happen next month. We might have to shut down and then sit with us as one through numbers. We had seasons of not paying ourselves, like months of not paying ourselves, just so that the team get paid and the business, the light is on in the company and I think Dami and I definitely co-managed, co-managed our stakeholders.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you for staying the course. It's incredible what you managed to ride, how you managed to ride the storm, but you recently made a bold pivot, changing your entire business model and announcing a new name. So what's the current business focus and and what's the story behind the name rivi?
Speaker 2:but currently we are still a financing company. So that still correlates with our original identity, but right now we're financing clean energy projects. We say we're financing the clean energy transition across Africa, we're financing the future of energy, and so we're still providing financing to small businesses, to individuals, to large corporations who are building alternative means to energy. A couple of years ago we took off the subsidy in Nigeria. Energy prices skyrocketed. I think Nigeria has always been on this cusp of clean energy transition but never really taken the leap because we always had oil to go back on.
Speaker 1:And I think that single-hand move.
Speaker 2:As horrible as it was at the time, it definitely forced us to think outside the box. So hospitals, health care providers, core social infrastructure, could no longer rely on generator Diesel costs fuel costs had skyrocketed to run these businesses or these places of social net, social safety nets for their communities. And so we started looking at solar, wind, different types of batteries, just to close that gap. And so, again, we were an experience. We understand the small and medium-sized business space. We know how to clearly define credit worthy businesses. Why don't we just see this as an opportunity? And so we started off as a new product. So we created a solar financing product alongside our original product, then just became the call. We started to see the growth, we saw the opportunity and again, we always wanted to build a business that was impact focused. So with this you can actually tangibly not that our previous business wasn't impact focused, but this is more tangible because you can see that direct impact on a day-to-day and so we did the pivot and Dami and I knew that we also needed to rebrand.
Speaker 2:Just coming out of hell, coming out of the co-founder's speech, change of strategic, change of the company, our vision. We felt that the name Payhipo was very much connected to payment banking. We were trying to be a business bank for Africa. We had even bought a bank and so we needed to rebrand and let people know that this is our new focus and our direction. The name Reevee, as you asked asked, is a Hindu word that's associated with brilliance and light and sunlight and personally I felt like I'd been given a second chance to shine and so, yeah, we're very excited about the name change, our team. We revealed the name to our team before we did the general public and I think everyone was just excited about the potential and the possibility.
Speaker 1:Congratulations on that. And how have you handled the transition from PayHippo to Rivi in terms of branding and positioning and getting the name out there?
Speaker 2:We worked with a fantastic PR company, PR communication company. I definitely had Dami and I initially thought we could do this ourselves and I just said, no, we're going to mess it up and I'm just coming from clearing up a mess.
Speaker 2:I felt that we needed an expert who understood how to communicate this across different stakeholders. One, we're communicating to the team, then we're communicating to investors, then we're communicating to the ecosystem of technology, then we're also signaling to the energy ecosystem that, hey, there's a new player here. Then the biggest pie was our customer. I love Nigerians, I love my home, but I could easily see them going. Rivi, I don't know Rivi, I know Pei Heko.
Speaker 2:And so I remember working with a PR company and I said my customers are the most important group here, because they need to understand what we're now providing and the usefulness of it to them. Let them know that it's the same team, the same group, it's not a fraudulent company who's coming over to confuse you. And so we did really well in launching that. We had multiple steps, from the color, the identity, defining our tagline and then, obviously, the community outreach. I have a great team that I work with, so my marketing team, my sales team it was all hands on deck. It was like a startup 2.0.
Speaker 2:So, again, everybody was valuable in this process. We needed everyone's input customer success team, my tech team, just everyone all hands on deck. And and I would say it was a success it has been so smooth and easy. It's almost like sometimes I forget that it's happened because people have just gone into. Hey, I read about what you guys are now doing, tell me about the shift, tell me about the change, like, okay, this went out smooth. But once in a while Dami and I in meetings would say, hey, you poets doing this and we'd have to correct ourselves. So we're still actually staying terminally in-house.
Speaker 1:The point on using a PR company so well taken. I think that it can take a lot of stress out of the process of repositioning and you mentioned that this was like startup 2.0. Are there lessons from the first time round that you took into this and implemented as you were rolling out this rebrand, the?
Speaker 2:first one, I'd say, was really understanding our ecosystem. I think we were playing in a financial space and we downplayed the potential for fraud rings or just fraud attempts on our system, and so we successfully upgraded our tech. We built our tech completely in-house. Nigerian tech gurus that I'm so proud of Kudos to them, kudos, kudos. Every day. I see them. I'm incredibly impressed. And so we upped our security. We increased the way that we verify, we underwrite, we partnered with other innovators in the ecosystem and layering their own innovation in different ways on top of ours, whether that's geolocation or pulling into various databases across the country to ensure that you're properly defining, then also using AI. With our credit underwriting, we have five years of data of seeing different types of businesses across different sectors, different performance data. We have key indicators now where, almost from the jump, we can say this is high risk or this is the amount we should give. We can go past this. This business is located in Tremas village. How safe is that? What's the access? So we're looking at different things beyond just the amount of money that a company makes. We're looking at environmental factors, we're looking at accessibility, but that isn't stopping us from pushing into less accessible places, but we're a bit more clear on what our risk factors are. We built in an engineering risk team, yeah, and so, yeah, so we've put in those measures for that.
Speaker 2:Another one I'll talk about is around co-founder relationships. I think it's just knowing that if you've never had this, thank your stars. But I think this is something that can happen to anyone and it's very important how this is something that can happen to anyone and it's very important how this is managed and it could come from different places. It could just be misaligned vision. It could also just be a co-founder who's burnt out or exhausted and cannot carry on one of my. When I look back now, I think one of the things that helped was, at the beginning, just really defining and that and I mean that from a legal perspective right and really understanding what each person did and how that contributed to the company growth, so that when you're having to unravel, it's a lot easier because you already have things around. Who owns the IP? It's not owned by an individual, it's owned by this company. What are our non-compete clauses Do we have?
Speaker 1:any.
Speaker 2:NDAs and just making sure that you have that from day one so that if, along the road, you do face any bumps or misunderstandings where you have to split and go your separate ways, it's a lot easier to detangle or untangle. But there were two key things I think that we missed out on doing, and that's really defining our decision-making process. So we were a co-founding team of three and we had it written somewhere in terms of two boards can approve, but I still think that we could have been a lot more clearer on that decision-making process because that led to us making mistakes on other things. And please, from day one, have a board.
Speaker 2:Yes, business partners, business operators, founders needed a board from day one. We were advised that we didn't need one until Really yes, and I don't know why that happened. I still don't understand that, but a lot of tech founders or tech companies at the time would tell you that you didn't need a board until I think it was series A and it had something to do with the equity and all of that stuff and the commitment and the time plus. Also, a board can really obstruct you from the type of innovation that you want, and I do get all of that for checks and balances you need to afford, and so, in hindsight, we would have set one up from the jump.
Speaker 1:Thanks for sharing that. Coming back to Rivi, I read that you've already deployed, dispersed, over $2 million in clean energy loans and I wondered if you could share not to put you on the spot, maybe one example of a success story of one of your companies just showing some real world impact for Rivi.
Speaker 2:Oh, I have tons, but I'll speak on two One short one and one long one. One is a healthcare operator, like a pharmacist that stores medication and injections and I don't want to say pharmacist, but more a middleman in the healthcare sector, and so power supply for them is non-negotiable. You can't even imagine a moment where they're disconnected from the grid or people who are?
Speaker 2:listening that are not familiar. Nigeria gets power from the green maybe three hours a day, if at all, on average, and so these operators need an alternative source of source of energy, and so working with us one the financing option allows them to not completely pour out all their funds into the high capital cost it takes to acquire solar or whatever alternative they choose to go with. So with us we could spread those payments. It's not heavy on the business, and then they're also able to provide their own services to their customers.
Speaker 2:Healthcare is life-saving. We would not know the amount of lives that could be impacted or be lost if they don't have access to medicine on time or properly stored medication. So for us, that's one of the huge ways that we're seeing impact in Nigeria. Another one example is we're working with microgrid installers who are installing larger energy provision for, say, universities or large businesses, and with that group we're just thinking beyond your traditional finance. We're thinking how can we be innovative with the finance that they can access to really scale what they're doing? And so we're looking at something called carbon financing, which is another technicality for another option for innovative finance for larger energy providers who are in the clean energy space.
Speaker 1:So coming back to funding, you've raised over what? $15 million in a mix of equity and debt. I was reading and I wonder what advice you would give to founders, especially women, who are navigating the question of whether to raise debt or equity.
Speaker 2:Wow. Yes, every time I hear that figure, even I sometimes I'm shocked because it was learning for me. I'd never raised money before. So everything that I've done on that front I've had to learn the goal front. I've had to learn the goal. So I'd say one of the biggest thing I can say to anyone is focus on your profit margin, really understand your projections. So where are you as a company now? Are you profitable? If you're not, how long does it take you to get to profitability? That's step one, so you really understand the health of your finances within this business that you're building.
Speaker 2:Some businesses in some sectors do not give away any equity at all. So, for instance, if from day one, you're making a million dollars a month, you might not need the type of equity that, say, a company like mine needed from being one. I sat in a room with a tech founder who described to us that his first raise was $350,000, and his second raise was $350 million. He didn't do any raise in between. So his company got to profitability really quickly. He was able to sustain and grow the business. So he wanted to hold as much equity because for every raise that you do get diluted because you're giving away more of your company, and so I would say for a founder or entrepreneur, really understand that equity balance.
Speaker 2:see where your business is at if you really do need it for debt. For a company like us who lends, debt is our milking cow. Basically, we do need to raise debt to lend to our customers, and so for us, that is a no-brainer. But again, one of the things I love about debt is it makes you a bit more conscious, probably more than equity, because you do have to repay your debt.
Speaker 2:And when we're raising debt from sayfis or other financial institutions, there's a lot of scrutiny on us. So you can't just walk into any place and say, hey, I need 100 million dollars debt. They're going to look through your books, they're going to look through your performance, they're going to qualify you as high risk or low risk, and so if your business isn't at the point where you would pass, say, a due diligence for a debt, raise, give yourself time, understand your core and if, honestly, you can really run your business profitable from an early stage, keep it at that until maybe you want to do something huge. Say you want to expand to a different geographic location. So say you're working out of Africa and suddenly you want to build, expand your business into Europe or the?
Speaker 2:U, you do need that injection of capital then you have a need for it don't give away too much equity and please have a board. So it could be an advisory board initially, but just have that for your checks and balances duly noted.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to ask you to put on your policy hat for a little bit. You're building into highly regulated industries finance and energy. How is Rivi adapting to the regulatory landscape in Nigeria and what's it been like for you so starting?
Speaker 2:from the fintech space. It was confusing in the beginning. In 2019, the ecosystem was literally just booming, especially the fintech space, and even the regulators were confused. What's happening? Who are you? Why are you doing this? You don't have the right license, we're stopping your business.
Speaker 2:And a lot of tech founders took that in a very negative way, almost defining that the government didn't like us or what we were doing. But because I had a policy background, I completely understood where they were coming from, like, we need regulation, we need to understand what they're doing. But at the time, we weren't speaking to each other, but the tech companies were speaking to each other and there was just a disconnect, I would say, over time. So from about 2020 till now, there's been a lot of the government coming to tech founders or the ecosystem and saying, hey, we're seeing insurance tech. Can we have a conversation around? What does this mean? What are your licenses? Okay, the license we have, does it really fit a fintech or is this more for a larger insurance company? I'm just using that as an example. So we started talking more to each other and you will notice that the regulatory landscape has changed over time. So I'm a lender. Who's my regulator? Do I fall under the central bank, do I fall under the Securities Exchange Commission or?
Speaker 2:am I just under the state regulator, and so there's a lot more transparency with that. The local legal companies understand the landscape very well, and so we rely heavily on them. So I have an incredible, uh big routine, and so every time we want to make a move, hey, can you check that? What we're doing? In the beginning tech companies weren't checking. We're just jumping, I'm starting this company, I'm going consequences later. But I think now that for us we've run a business for six years, that would be quite. It was wonderful. So we're more on it with ensuring that we're falling into the proper regulations for fintech and now for the cleantech space. We're also going to be playing in the voluntary capital markets. Okay for nigeria, which is still being designed at the moment. Again, we've come into a space where there's almost no regulation in that sense for the carbon market, because it's really new for the ecosystem here, and so we're co-defining, we're co-building, we're speaking to the government, they're speaking to us just to ensure that nobody makes any mistakes that are costly.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Shifting a little, you've mentioned in the past that motherhood played a big role in your journey as an entrepreneur and I wonder if you can share how becoming a mom shaped, how you lead, prioritize and even show up as a founder.
Speaker 2:Oh, being a mom just changed my whole life, and I would say changed my life more, because I actually never wanted to be a mom. So it was one of those things that um yes, but that's another story for another podcast. And so this came into my life and just completely, I'll say, prior to my baby, I did not necessarily have a work-life balance.
Speaker 2:I worked all the time having him has taught me to slow down, not to to stop, but to slow down to reflect on my achievements, to take them in. It helped me define myself in spaces. So my son would walk up to me when he was about 18 months and he'd say, and I thought to myself oh my God, he sees me working all the time. He needs to see me in different spaces where I'm having fun and laughing and relaxed.
Speaker 2:And so I'm more conscious of that and I'll just say he's made me more a conscious human being and just more gracious to myself and appreciating all the work that I've done all these years and my strengths and my weaknesses, and just almost giving myself a pat on the back which I didn't know how to do before.
Speaker 1:I like that. I like that a lot. So, just in wrapping up, I wanted to find out what's next for Rivi and are there any exciting developments or markets you're looking to expand to? Or is this really just a Nigeria play, nigeria?
Speaker 2:gets me so excited. I can't even Nigeria play. Nigeria gets me so excited I can't even believe how much it gets me this excited. It shouldn't, because if you're Nigerian, all the parts of living here that are really stressful. So for us right now, we've done the rebrand. We're taking over the space. Nigeria is a huge market. I don't think we're able to cover 5% of that yet. Nigeria is a huge market. I don't think we're able to cover 5% of that yet, and so we really want to take our time and go deep in this market. We do have to bring Banshan again into potentially West Africa.
Speaker 2:When we think about carbon finance, that's the most exciting part for me. I haven't talked about it a lot on this podcast because it's still being fleshed out. We've been building, we're still working with our technical partners, but on that plate it allows us to spread across Africa and that gives us the confidence to say, hey, we're building financing for Africa, because with that plate we're not bound by geography, and I think it just creates another opportunity for the continent. So many of the continents have been doing this for years and we're only just coming into it. I'm excited that we're a bit more conscious and green. Now knows. Oh, we're going off the grid because we're switching to solar. It's like normal conversation in his vocabulary, rather than saying we're switching to the generator money, and so that for me, is also a sign that, just as we did with credit, teachings the benefits of credit, I think we're also doing that again in the market, where we're pushing this green transition that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:you, earlier on, you spoke about how having your son helped you stop and appreciate the work that you're doing and pat yourself on the back, so I'm going to give you a chance to do that right now. Looking back on your journey, what would you say is one or maybe two of your proudest achievements so far?
Speaker 2:One or two of my proudest achievements. I think building in Africa is one of my proudest achievements. I think building in Africa is one of my proudest achievements. I always just thought I was going to be working in a company and just be here, but I knew that I wanted to really create change, whatever that looks like, and I'm so thankful that I was given the opportunity to do this and that I grabbed that opportunity and I built Peypaw and from that journey I've now built Reevee and continue to build. I'm really proud of that and I'm also proud of being a mom and and what that means for my family and for my son we can tell.
Speaker 1:So in terms of advice, I always ask my guests to give advice. What advice would you give to other women who are building or running businesses in Africa?
Speaker 2:building anything in Africa, doing anything in Africa. As a woman, it can be tough because we come from a patriarchal culture and we know what that means. One of the things I always say is I pick one or two women who I had seen two incredible things on the continent and realized that they even came from a time before this time where there was more resistance to their success and to their growth. And what I learned from that, and I tell myself and I tell other people, is stay the course, don't give up too soon, drill deeper, because sometimes you're in the same spot but you're going deeper. So externally it might look like you're not going further, but you're draining deeper.
Speaker 2:Never be afraid when petrokey looks at you in the face, just look at it back and push on and just stay the course, because there's so much that comes from just refusing to give up so soon as women in Africa who are building the ripple effect is incredible. I cannot tell you the number of younger women or even my peers who say I'm so inspired by this. Oh my God, I can't believe you did this. I'm going to do this, I can't believe you did this, I'm going to do this, or inspire you more to start that company to grow, even within the nine to five space, and just push for whatever's been determined as impossible and just believing that you can actually do it.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, fantastic. Thank you so much, emma. And finally, how can our listeners learn more about Rivi or get involved in supporting your mission?
Speaker 2:Thank you. So for any updates on Rivi, we're online across all the social media platforms at Rivi HQ so you can follow our progress and our journey. If you're in Nigeria and you're running a business, or you're home and you're looking to switch to solar, we are more than excited to provide the financing required for that at this initial stage, and once we have new products, we will definitely let the greater public know about these.
Speaker 1:This has been an insightful conversation. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:I've really enjoyed talking to you. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I've really enjoyed talking to you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening. If you're not already subscribed, please do so on Apple, spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and don't forget to leave us a review so we know how we're doing. I'm Akego Okoye and you have been listening to African Business Stories.