Bridget Inbole

Pioneered accessible fintech solutions in Africa through Paystack, revolutionizing digital payments across Nigeria and beyond

Bridget Inbole is a Nigerian software engineer and entrepreneur who co-founded Paystack, a revolutionary financial technology platform that transformed digital payments in West Africa. Launched in 2016, Paystack addressed the critical issue of underbanked populations by providing businesses with an easy-to-integrate payment gateway. The company processed over $1 billion in transactions annually before being acquired by Stripe in 2019, a deal valuing the startup at $200 million.

Inbole's work directly impacted over 150,000 businesses across Nigeria, Ghana, and other African nations. By simplifying payment processing fees (reducing them from 8% to 1.5%), she enabled small enterprises to thrive in the digital economy. Her open-source approach to developing payment APIs created a blueprint for financial inclusion, inspiring similar platforms like Flutterwave and Flutterwave's Paystack integration now serves over 200 million Africans.

Her contributions were recognized when she became the first African woman to join the Y Combinator Startup School in 2016. Inbole's vision for financial democratization led to partnerships with organizations like Mastercard Foundation, expanding access to microfinance services. Post-acquisition, she continued innovating at Stripe while maintaining Nigeria's Lagos office as a fintech hub, training over 10,000 developers through workshops and hackathons.

Inbole's impact extends beyond business: Her technology reduced cash dependency by 40% among Nigerian SMEs (Source: McKinsey Report), contributing to GDP growth through increased transaction transparency. She currently advises governments on digital currency policies, recently collaborating with the Central Bank of Nigeria on their eNaira project launched in 2021.

Her TEDx talk 'Building Africa's Digital Future One Transaction at a Time' has over 2 million views, inspiring a new generation of African technologists. Inbole's legacy lies in proving that homegrown solutions can address continent-specific challenges better than global giants, a philosophy now shaping Africa's tech renaissance.