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Unicorns aren’t supposed to exist. That’s why they’re called unicorns.
Building a unicorn is never easy. For Black founders, it can feel like running a marathon with a backpack full of bricks. Venture capital? Scarce. Mentorship? Even rarer. Bias—both overt and subtle—lurks at every turn. Yet over the last decade, a growing number of Black founders have built companies that broke through the $1 billion valuation mark—often against odds that would make most people quit.
These are not overnight success stories. They’re years in the making. Late nights. Empty bank accounts. Investors who said no until one finally said yes. Each of these founders carved out their own lane in industries as varied as fintech, healthtech, e-commerce, and media.
Billionaires.Africa highlights 10 Black entrepreneurs from Nigeria and Somalia to the United States and the United Kingdom who have founded companies that hit the coveted unicorn status.
Tope Awotona—Founder & CEO of Calendly
44-year-old Nigerian-American Tope Awotona is the founder of Calendly, a virtual availability and booking app used to schedule meetings, appointments, and events for individuals and organizations. Tope Awotona never set out to build one of the most popular productivity tools on the planet. But after years in sales, scheduling endless meetings and wrestling with clunky software, he couldn’t take it anymore. In 2013, he emptied his savings account to launch Calendly, a simple app with a deceptively big promise: kill the back-and-forth of setting up meetings. Calendly hit a $3 billion valuation in 2021, making Awotona one of the rare Black tech founders to run a unicorn without outside CEOs or founders stepping in.
Olugbenga Agboola—Founder & CEO of Flutterwave
Olugbenga Agboola, known as GB, co-founded Flutterwave in 2016 with a simple mission: make it easier for African businesses to move money. The Nigerian entrepreneur, a former banker and engineer, built the platform into one of the continent’s leading fintechs, powering payments for companies like Uber and Netflix. Flutterwave has raised over $450 million from investors including Tiger Global and Mastercard, hitting a $3 billion valuation in 2022. With operations in more than 30 African countries, Agboola is proving that African-born innovation can compete on a global scale—one transaction at a time.
Ismail Ahmed—Founder of Zepz (formerly WorldRemit)
Born in Somaliland, Ahmed knows firsthand the importance of sending money across borders. As a young man, he fled conflict, eventually settling in the UK. Years later, frustrated by the high fees and inefficiencies in traditional remittance services, he founded WorldRemit in 2010. The idea was simple: use mobile technology to make international money transfers cheaper, faster, and more accessible. Today, the company—rebranded as Zepz—operates in over 130 countries and supports more than 70 currencies. Its user base spans millions, from African migrants sending money home to families in Asia and Latin America. In 2021, Zepz raised $292 million in a Series E round, pushing its valuation to $5 billion. A year later, it secured another $267 million from investors including the World Bank’s IFC, Accel, and TCV. That funding came on the heels of Zepz’s acquisition of SendWave, bolstering its presence in core African markets and beyond.
Ham Serunjogi—Founder & CEO of Chipper Cash
Ham Serunjogi grew up in Uganda watching how hard it was for people to move money across African borders. Years later, that frustration became fuel. In 2018, the Ugandan-born, now Ugandan-American entrepreneur co-founded Chipper Cash with Ghanaian partner Maijid Moujaled. Their goal: create a simple, low-cost way for Africans to send money peer-to-peer across countries. The idea struck a chord. Chipper Cash quickly scaled across Africa, offering free cross-border transfers and expanding into crypto trading and card services. The startup has raised over $300 million from heavyweights like Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions, Ribbit Capital, and FTX (before its collapse). At its 2021 peak, Chipper Cash hit a $2 billion valuation, cementing its place among Africa’s rare fintech unicorns.
Abbey Wemimo—Co-founder & CEO of Esusu
Growing up in Lagos, Abbey Wemimo saw how lack of access to credit could trap families in cycles of poverty. Years later, as a Nigerian-American entrepreneur, he co-founded Esusu to tackle that very problem. Launched in 2018 with Samir Goel, Esusu helps renters report on-time payments to credit bureaus—turning monthly rent into a tool for building financial identity. The idea resonated. Esusu’s model caught the attention of major investors, raising over $130 million to date and earning a unicorn valuation in 2022. Today, its platform covers millions of rental units across the U.S., providing a lifeline for immigrants, minorities, and low-income households shut out of traditional credit systems.
Tosin Eniolorunda—Co-founder & CEO of Moniepoint
Born and raised in Nigeria, Tosin Eniolorunda saw the everyday struggles of small businesses trying to move money in cash-heavy markets. In 2015, he co-founded Moniepoint (formerly TeamApt) to fix that—building a payments platform that now processes billions of dollars in transactions monthly across Africa. Under his leadership, Moniepoint became one of Africa’s biggest fintech players, quietly raising hundreds of millions and earning a unicorn valuation in 2023. Today, the company powers over 600,000 businesses, offering tools from payments to credit, in a mission to create financial infrastructure for the continent’s underserved.
Iman Abuzeid—Co-founder & CEO of Incredible Health
In 2017, Iman Abuzeid co-founded Incredible Health to tackle a crisis: how hospitals hire and retain nurses. The Sudanese-American physician-turned-entrepreneur built a platform that uses algorithms to speed up hiring from months to days. Backed by $97 million from investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Incredible Health hit unicorn status in 2022.
Iyin Aboyeji—Co-founder & CEO of Flutterwave and Andela
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji has a knack for building billion-dollar startups. The Nigerian entrepreneur co-founded Andela in 2014 to train African software developers and connect them with global tech companies. Backed by Mark Zuckerberg’s Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Andela hit unicorn status in 2019. Aboyeji then co-founded Flutterwave in 2016, creating a payments platform that now powers transactions across 30 African countries. With over $475 million raised and a $3 billion valuation, Flutterwave is one of Africa’s most valuable startups. Aboyeji has since sold off his shareholding in Flutterwave but he retains a stake in Andela.
Oliver & Alexander Kent-Braham, Co-founder & CEO of Marshmallow
The London-born twins, both in their early thirties, co-founded Marshmallow in 2017 to make insurance more accessible, especially for people often ignored or overcharged by traditional providers—like immigrants and low-credit-score customers. It started with a simple idea: what if pricing models didn’t penalize you for not fitting the usual profile? That idea took off. Fast. Marshmallow is now one of the UK’s fastest-growing insurtechs, valued at $1.25 billion after a 2021 funding round. It made headlines not just for the valuation, but because Oliver and Alexander became two of the very few Black founders in Europe to build a unicorn—and even fewer to do it without giving up control.