2025 ABAN Conference Themed: Accelerating Local Capital Participation

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REMARKS BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, IMMEDIATE PAST VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA AT THE 2025 ABAN CONFERENCE THEMED ACCELERATING LOCAL CAPITAL PARTICIPATION ON THE 17TH OF OCTOBER, 2025

Protocols

May I congratulate ABAN on your 10th anniversary and commend you for the extraordinary, impactful work that you’ve done in the past 10 years.

So, I’m to speak to the theme of the conference, which is Accelerating Local Capital Participation. I think that everyone would agree that across Africa today, there’s a quiet revolution that is underway, from Lagos to Nairobi, from Accra to Kigali, young entrepreneurs are building companies that tackle some of our continent’s toughest problems, in healthcare, in finance, in agriculture, in logistics, and they’re not waiting for perfect conditions. They’re building sometimes, in spite of policy uncertainty and infrastructure gaps.

And yet, for all their brilliance, too many of these founders face the same barriers: capital that believes in them early enough and will stay in difficult times. Global investors often want proof of traction before they step in, but who provides that first check, that first vote of confidence, that first bridge, you know, literally across the valley of uncertainty? The truth is, it must be us, and I say us, local investors, because we live these problems. We understand the urgency of the mother who is in need of blood, a farmer without credit, a shopkeeper without banking access.

We don’t need to be convinced that there are real problems. We see them every single day. And so, when a local capital investor, when a local investor steps up, first, something powerful happens. Founders gain not just money, but mentorship, networks, and credibility. Companies survive their toughest early storms because investors who share their context stand by them, and global capital follows. And that validates what we already knew, that African founders can build world-class companies.

This morning, I’m just going to share with you some stories that prove this, and I share the stories, I must confess, I’m biased, but I share the stories about Nigerians, Nigerian startups that, of course, have become really something. Many of them began with local belief and went on to save lives, to empower millions, and even become global unicorns. Stories that show why local capital is not just important, it’s indispensable.

So, let’s begin with the Life Bank story. I’m sure many of us are familiar with the company Life Bank. In 2016, Temi Giwa Tubosun founded Life Bank with a simple but life-saving mission: to deliver blood to hospitals in need.

So, she started with an app, two employees, and her own savings. But of course, you know that vision alone does not build a company. So, what turned that fragile dream into a life-saving enterprise was not foreign capital, but the $25,000 pre-seed investment from Co-Creation Hub, CC Hub.

And why did CC Hub believe? Why did they believe in Temi’s dream? They saw her credibility, a founder with global health experience and personal conviction. They understood the urgency of the problem because they were local people, they’re here themselves. Nigeria’s high maternal mortality rate, often caused by blood shortages.

They recognised the simplicity and scalability of her model, mobile tech plus motorcycles to connect blood banks to hospitals. And they were drawn to the dual promise, saving lives while building a sustainable business that hospitals could pay for. But for CC Hub, the local investor didn’t just, CC Hub is that investor, but they didn’t just write a check. They provided mentorship, they provided workspace and introductions to hospitals and regulators. So, when LifeBank faced some scepticism and logistical hurdles, CC Hub’s steady support gave Temi the resilience to push through. Today, LifeBank serves over 600 hospitals.

It has now expanded into Kenya and has delivered enough blood to save more than 100,000 lives.

Then there is PiggyVest. Some of us may know PiggyVest. PiggyVest is a digital savings and investment FinTech company, founded in 2016. And PiggyVest began with local angel backing from a gentleman called Olumide Shoyombo, who I’m sure many will be familiar with, and others. Why did Olumide and others believe in PiggyVest? They believed because they knew that Nigerians struggled with the savings culture. Many still kept money at home. So PiggyVest digitised this cultural habit, making saving small amounts automated. And they made it safe and disciplined.

So Shoyombo wasn’t just an investor; he acted as a mentor, guiding the founders through regulatory hurdles and connecting them to partners. When regulatory uncertainty threatened FinTechs, he stood by them, helping PiggyVest build trust with regulators and users, and was able to do so because he understood the local environment well. He knew who to call. He knew which phone calls were going to be important. And they raised over $1.2 million in early rounds.

They now have over five million users, saving billions of Naira, and reshaping Nigeria’s saving culture.

Then there’s Thrive Agric. That was also founded in 2016. Thrive Agric’s early lifeline came from local banks and ecosystem partners. Why did local banks believe? Because agriculture employs most of Nigeria’s rural population. Local knowledge, local information.

Yet the farmers lacked credit, they lacked inputs, and markets. So Thrive Agric’s model, financing farmers, providing inputs, and aggregating produce, promised both food security and commercial returns. In 2020, Thrive Agric faced some liquidity issues, quite serious. But instead of abandoning the company, the local backers worked with the founders to restructure their operations, shift focus from retail crowdfunding to institutional financing, and then rebuild trust. That patience allowed Thrive Agric to bounce back and eventually secured a $56.4 million debt facility in 2022. Thrive Agric has so far supported over 500,000 local farmers, boosting food security and rural incomes.

Then there’s MoniePoint, founded in 2015. MoniePoint was initially backed by local banks and Nigerian investors. Why did they believe? Because tens of millions of Nigerians were unbanked, and they knew where to find them, in all the underserved areas.

So, the MoniePoint’s agency banking model, turning shopkeepers into human ATMs, and they were called human banks, was simple, a simple, scalable solution to financial exclusion. So local investors acted as navigators, helping MoniePoint build relationships with the Central Bank of Nigeria and securing licences. When regulatory challenges threatened growth, these investors stood firm. They ensured that MoniePoint could evolve into a licensed microfinance bank. MoniePoint has raised over 110 million US dollars. It serves over 10 million people and over two million businesses. It processes billions of transactions annually.

And then lastly, there is, for that segment, there is MDaaS Global, founded in 2016 also. And this 2016 was an interesting year. And MDaaS was incubated with support from local angels and ventures, and the Ventures Platform, beg your pardon, Kola Aina’s Fund. Why did Kola Aina’s Fund and these other angels believe? Because Nigeria’s healthcare system was weak, particularly in diagnostics. Patients often couldn’t afford or access basic tests.

So MDaaS built affordable diagnostic centres in underserved areas, supported by its proprietary software. But Ventures Platform didn’t just invest. They provided governance support, mentorship, and introductions to insurers and healthcare partners.

When scaling was slow, in a tough sector, they remained patient, helping MDaaS refine, model, and expand steadily. The company has raised over three million dollars and runs 17 diagnostic centres across 10 Nigerian states. And they’ve served over 260,000 patients, and they partner at the moment with 1,300 providers.

Now these stories prove that local capital is not just money, it is context-aware support, investors who understand the problems up close. It is resilience, backers who stay through the storms because they live those realities themselves. And its sustainability, because when we invest in our own, the returns are not only financial, they are social, and they are generational.

And of course, there are the unicorns as well. Paystack, founded in 2015 by Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi. I went to see Paystack sometime in 2017, just these young guys in a large room in Ikeja somewhere here. But their earliest believer was a Nigerian angel investor, again, Olumide Shoyombo, who wrote the first check when all they had was a prototype. Well, Shoyombo also acted as a mentor, helping them navigate some of Nigeria’s payment regulations, connect with early customers. That local faith carried them into Y Combinator later in 2016, and then in 2018, into a Series A with Stripe, Visa, and Tencent. By 2020, as we all know, Stripe acquired Paystack for over $200 million. And of course, that’s a story that, you know, many of us just think, this is great.

Well, then there are those who say, we could even have waited a little longer and sold for several billions, but that’s another story.

There’s Flutterwave, founded also in 2016 by Iyin Aboyeji, who’s here somewhere, and Olugbenga Agboola. Its first support came from local angels and hubs like CC Hub, who not only invested but also provided ecosystem credibility and mentorship.

And this was crucial in convincing banks and regulators to trust a young payment startup. By 2021, Flutterwave had raised over $170 million, becoming a unicorn valued at the time at 1 billion US dollars. By 2022, it had raised 250 million US dollars at a $3 billion valuation, making it, at the time, Africa’s most valuable startup.

So, the pattern is clear: one, local angels invest and believe first. Two, they mentor, they guide, and stand by founders in crisis. Three, global capital follows. Four, unicorn outcomes emerge. Without local belief and local resilience, there is no global validation.

Unless there is local belief and there’s local resilience, why should anyone else believe in us? So, what does this mean for us, and for some of us in this room, and for potential local investors? It means that every check that you write into an African startup is more than an investment; it’s a vote of confidence in our ability to solve our own problems. It’s a seed of resilience planted on African soil.

And it’s a promise that the next Life Bank, the next PiggyVest, the next Thrive Agric, the next MoniePoint, the next MDaaS, Paystack, Flutterwave, will not have to wait for foreign validation before they can change the world. So, let’s first be believers. Let’s be the capital that understands the context, that stays through the storms, that mentors and guides, and that builds companies designed to last in Africa, for Africa.

When we invest locally, we’re not just funding startups, we’re funding our future.

Thank you very much.