There is a certain mythology in the technology world that founders are supposed to be bulletproof. The narrative demands that young entrepreneurs, especially those building in Africa’s notoriously difficult startup ecosystem, present a facade of relentless optimism, impressive growth charts, and the kind of unshakable confidence that convinces investors to write cheques. Vulnerability is often treated as a liability, and grief is not part of the pitch deck. But Odunayo Eweniyi has never been interested in that mythology. She has built her career by refusing to pretend that the road is smooth, choosing instead to acknowledge every crack, every bruise, and every moment of profound loss while refusing to let any of it stop her.
As the Chief Operations Officer of PiggyVest, one of Nigeria’s most successful fintech platforms, and the founder of First Check Africa, an angel fund dedicated to backing women-led startups, Eweniyi represents a new kind of African tech leader. She is not interested in performing perfection. She is interested in building things that matter, supporting people who are overlooked, and using her platform to create change far beyond the boundaries of business. Hers is not a story of overnight success. It is a story of what happens when a brilliant young woman decides that even the worst moments of her life will be converted into fuel for something bigger than herself.
Long before she became one of the most recognisable voices in African tech, Odunayo Eweniyi was a computer science graduate from Covenant University, a private institution in Ota, Nigeria, with a reputation for producing disciplined, technically sound graduates. She could code, she could build, and she could see gaps that others overlooked. It was this combination of technical skill and sharp observation that led her, alongside her co-founders, to launch PiggyVest in 2016, a savings and investment platform initially known as Piggybank.ng. The idea was designed to address a uniquely Nigerian problem: the cultural habit of saving money in physical wooden boxes known as kolo, which offered zero interest, zero security, and zero accountability.
The execution was revolutionary. PiggyVest digitised the discipline of saving, giving young Nigerians, many of whom were locked out of traditional banking products, a way to save small amounts of money automatically, earn interest, and build financial habits that had been historically inaccessible. The platform grew rapidly, and today it manages billions of Naira in savings for millions of users, making it one of the most trusted fintech platforms in Nigeria. But for Eweniyi, the numbers tell only part of the story. The real story is about what financial inclusion means for a generation that has grown up watching their parents struggle with an unstable economy, and about giving people the tools to build security in a country where security often feels like a luxury.
In October 2020, Nigeria erupted. The #EndSARS protests, a youth-led movement demanding the dissolution of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, a police unit notorious for brutality, extortion, and extrajudicial violence, took over the streets of Lagos, Abuja, and cities across the country. For the first time in a generation, young Nigerians felt like they had a voice, and they were using it. Odunayo Eweniyi was one of the most visible voices in the tech ecosystem during those weeks. She did not just tweet about the movement. She mobilised, coordinated logistics, and helped raise funds for protestors who needed food, water, and medical care, using her platform and her resources to support a cause that was bigger than any startup, bigger than any valuation, and bigger than any exit strategy.
Then, on the night of October 20, 2020, everything changed. The Lekki Toll Gate massacre, when Nigerian security forces opened fire on peaceful protesters, sent shockwaves through the country and the world. For Eweniyi, the trauma was immediate and personal. She was there. She experienced the terror firsthand, and she saw things that no amount of startup success could ever erase. In the aftermath, she did something that many people in her position would not have done. She kept speaking. While some tech founders retreated into silence, afraid of political backlash or business consequences, Eweniyi continued to demand accountability, using her voice to bear witness and refusing to let the world look away.
That moment solidified Eweniyi’s place not just as a founder, but as a leader who understood that technology and politics are not separate spheres. She understood that building wealth in a broken system does not exempt you from fighting to fix that system, and that some things, like justice, dignity, and human life, are worth more than any business metric. It would have been understandable if she had decided to focus solely on PiggyVest after 2020. The company was growing, the work was demanding, and the emotional toll of the protests had been immense. Nobody would have blamed her for pulling back, for protecting her peace, or for choosing to operate in a quieter lane. Instead, she did the opposite.
In 2021, she announced the launch of First Check Africa, an angel fund with a very specific mission: to invest in early-stage, women-led startups across the continent. The name itself was a statement. The “first check” is often the hardest money for any founder to raise. It is the money that says, “I believe in you before anyone else does.” It is the money that turns an idea into a company. Eweniyi understood this barrier intimately because she had lived it. As a female founder in a tech ecosystem dominated by men, she had faced the skepticism, the condescension, and the quiet assumption that women could not build scalable businesses. She had watched brilliant women with world-changing ideas get ignored by investors who preferred to bet on men who looked like them.
First Check Africa was her answer, and it was not charity or a diversity initiative. It was a strategic bet on a massive, untapped market of female entrepreneurs who had been systematically overlooked. The fund focuses on pre-seed and seed-stage investments, writing cheques to women who are building the future of African tech, fintech, health tech, logistics, agriculture, and beyond. In an ecosystem where less than 15% of venture capital goes to female-founded startups, First Check Africa is not just investing money. It is investing in a different kind of future, one where the next generation of female founders does not have to fight as hard as she did.
There is a particular exhaustion that comes with being a public figure in Nigeria. The same visibility that allows you to raise capital, attract customers, and build influence also exposes you to criticism, trolling, and the constant threat of political retaliation. For women in the public eye, the scrutiny is even more intense. Eweniyi has been called outspoken, which is often code for “she should be quieter.” She has been called emotional, which is often code for “she should be less human.” She has been called difficult, which is often code for “she should be more accommodating.” But she has refused to shrink, refused to apologise for having a voice, and refused to perform the kind of quiet, grateful femininity that is often expected of women in her position.
Instead, she has built a brand around authenticity. She tweets about her wins and her struggles. She talks about money openly, demystifying the taboo that often surrounds wealth in Nigerian culture. She shares her opinions on politics, feminism, and the future of Africa, even when those opinions are unpopular. This willingness to be fully human, to show the cracks alongside the achievements, is perhaps her greatest contribution to the African tech ecosystem. She has proven that you do not have to be perfect to be powerful, and you do not have to be invulnerable to be successful.
What does it mean to turn pain into power? For Odunayo Eweniyi, it means refusing to let trauma be the end of the story. It means taking the worst moment of your life and asking, “What can I build from this?” The #EndSARS protests broke something in her, but they also revealed something. They revealed that her voice was bigger than she had realised, that her platform could be used for more than selling savings products, and that the fight for a better Nigeria and a better Africa was not someone else’s responsibility. She is building that future, one investment at a time, proving that resilience is not about bouncing back. It is about moving forward, taking the fire that was meant to destroy you, and using it to light the way for everyone else. Odunayo Eweniyi is not bulletproof. She is something better. She is still rising.
