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| Former Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun and Tosin Eniolorunda—the group CEO of Moniepoint |
This Nidacity interview is hosted by the former Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun and features Tosin Eniolorunda, the founder and Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of Moniepoint. The conversation chronicles his transition from a middle-class upbringing to building one of African fintech unicorns. The conversation is shared around the early funding challenges, strategic business pivots, the country’s SME sector, and human capital issues.
Moniepoint's Strategic Growth Map
The company's expansion roadmap relies on vertical integration and geographical diversification to lock in merchants beyond simple payment terminals:
Tosin Eniolorunda's Story
Tosin Eniolorunda was born into a lower-middle-class family to a primary school teacher and an engineering contractor. He grew up watching his father read electrical engineering manuals, and that sparked his early interest in understanding how technical systems operate.
He notes—in the Nidacity podcast—that growing up with Nigeria's regular power grid issues and missing out on the shiny things other kids had drove his early desire to create a more comfortable life and build systems for himself.
He said he made his first notable money as an entrepreneur during his junior secondary school days as an electronics technician apprentice, and at some point in time, the earnings from the apprenticeship helped supplement household income when his father was ill.
In university, he sustained himself comfortably by coding and building technical hardware projects for final-year students. After studying mechanical engineering at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Ile-Ife, he interned at Schlumberger.
He originally set a high benchmark: if he stayed in oil and gas, it had to be a top programme like Stanford Petroleum Engineering to guarantee a strong standard of living. When his GMAT and background didn't clear that specific hurdle, he committed fully to technology.
He intentionally spent 5 years working at Interswitch—a company referred to as the "grandfather of Nigerian fintech"—to learn from industry veterans. Tosin dismisses the common romanticised media narrative of a "whiz kid" coding a massive business overnight in their bedroom.
He argues these are extreme outliers; true enterprise requires putting in the foundational hours to master the current "state of the art" in an industry before attempting to disrupt it.
The Evolution of TeamApt and Moniepoint
In 2015, he launched the company under the name TeamApt, focusing initially on building backend infrastructure and software solutions for banks. By 2019, they realised the enterprise software business model was hard to scale because banks controlled the customer relationships, delayed payments, and took most of the financial upside.
First-principles financial thinking showed them that fintech profits come from subscription, interest, or transactions. However, they targeted payments because subscriptions are not what people in the market are familiar with, and interest requires a banking licence.
They launched an online gateway called Monify alongside an offline in-person transaction product we now know today as Moniepoint. Moniepoint was initially given a localised working title (known as Kugo) before the team organised an internal naming contest where an employee suggested "Moniepoint".
In 2019, offline payment processing (Point of Sale/POS distribution) was seen as unappealing, labour-intensive, and unsexy compared to pure digital web gateways. However, monthly transactional numbers showed consistent 100% growth. He mentioned that the subsequent 2020 COVID lockdowns and local cashless policies accelerated the adoption of agency banking overnight.
Funding Realities, Valuation, and Unit Economics
Tosin started TeamAPT with personal savings and a ₦15 million contract secured shortly after leaving his job as a software engineer at Interswitch. To maintain cash flow, the company took upfront payments on banking software projects. At one difficult operational juncture, he had to borrow money from his wife to cover staff salaries. "I borrowed money from my wife to pay salaries," he said.
Their first major institutional funding came from Zenith Bank founder Jim Ovia, CFR, via Quantum Capital—a prominent investment banking and asset management firm providing financial advisory and market insights. Pitching a core switching infrastructure plan, Ovia backed them based on strong technical references from Zenith Bank projects, closing a 20% equity stake deal in roughly 6 weeks.
Moniepoint went on to raise over $200 million across subsequent rounds (including Novastar Ventures, QED, and Development Partners International), reaching a $1 billion valuation. Tosin explains that he deliberately stood against the fintech funding boom of 2021–2022, which encouraged chasing astronomical valuations at the expense of baseline profitability.
Insights on the Nigerian Market and Talents
Tosin talked about the transaction volume the company processed regionally. He said that North Central Nigeria has shown significant activity, with the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) ranking as the largest local government area by transaction volume in their network. This milestone surpasses even major commercial state hubs.
Moniepoint bypasses physical collateral requirements by relying on transaction flow, industry sector margins, and credit bureau histories. Their data reveals distinct risk profiles by business type; for instance, bars and traditional grocery stores show higher non-performing loan (NPL) rates, while pharmacies rank among the highest-performing credit segments.
He also highlights a dual challenge regarding local technical talent. He said that domestic educational institutions are not producing specialised skills at a fast enough rate, and top-tier professionals face intense societal pressure to emigrate (the "Japa" phenomenon). However, Moniepoint has set up corporate visa sponsorship programmes in the UK and Canada just to retain their migrating senior staff.
