Segunfunmi Oyedele, From Building Websites At 11 To Building Africa's Trade Rails

Oyedele's fascination with technology began far earlier than most founders' origin stories allow. Mentored by an older brother who worked as a software engineer, he started programming at around age ten and, by his own account, was already building his first websites at eleven, a head start that would carry him from teenage freelance gigs straight through college. That freelance income, he says, paid his tuition.

After graduating, Oyedele built a conventional, high-pedigree engineering career, working across investment banking at Goldman Sachs, healthcare technology at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and enterprise systems at Dell Technologies. But a question followed him through every one of those rooms: why was it still so hard for talented people and businesses in Africa to participate fully in the global economy?

That question became Raiz Finance. The company did not start out as a trade platform, it began by trying to solve payment problems for freelancers and gig workers moving money across borders. Oyedele and his team quickly discovered the problem was bigger than freelancers: African businesses trying to pay overseas suppliers or receive payment from international customers were still routed through multiple correspondent banks, domiciliary account requirements, middlemen and costly currency conversion. That realisation pushed Raiz Finance toward a broader mission, building infrastructure, not just another payments feature.

Today, Raiz Finance positions itself as trade and payment infrastructure for emerging markets, aiming to let African businesses pay suppliers, accept international payments through local payment rails, and keep audit-ready trade records, all connected to global partners in markets like the United States and China. The company has previously operated under the Raiz banner as a multi-currency digital banking platform, offering global-passport USD accounts, communal savings ("Ajo"), and AI-driven budgeting tools, before evolving toward its current trade-infrastructure focus.

“Opportunity should never be limited by geography,” is the belief Oyedele repeats most often to describe Raiz Finance mission, a line that has become something close to the company's operating philosophy as it works to make global trade “as easy as sending a message.”