Tomilola Majekodunmi, Founder & C.E.O. of Bankly. Tomi and her team are digitalising informal thrift saving and in March this year, Bankly announced that it has raised $2 million in a seed round to scale.
Tell us briefly how you started Bankly;
Bankly is typically a bank for the unbanked, digitizing cash and trying to protect the unbanked from theft and fraud of cash transactions.
How did you conceive the idea for Bankly?
Prior to Bankly, I was part of the founding team of another startup trying to give loans to people who were unbanked. While doing research for that I realised cash digitalisation was a thing, but I didn’t have an idea to start anything until I joined a program by a VC called the company Builder that allowed me to further research on some of the financial issues in Africa. I went talking to people on the streets of Lagos and while doing that, I had the idea for Bankly.
What were the restrictions you faced starting on the idea you had?
I will be sincere, the first thing was how am I going to fund this? When starting a new venture there are some starting costs, like you need a team whether it is one person, you need to incorporate the business, there is just so much to do and you need money. Also, it gets to a point the company starts to demand so much from you and you need to quit your job and be full-time in the company. So the blockage is usually money and making a decision to quit my day job to fully commit myself and time to the business.
Take us through your journey of fundraising from your bootstrapping days to your current seed round raise?
Great question! My bootstrap lasted for about 6 to 8 months or more. I incorporated Bankly in July 2018, as well as built our minimum viable product (MVP). 6 months after building the MVP and we had gotten some few people trying to use it, I then said “they are using it, but there are too many other things I needed to get done to make the product satisfactory”. I needed a team, needed partnerships, talents, sales, bring in technology and expansion. It was then I realised the costs were beyond my savings and we needed help. So we put together a pitch deck, built a 3 year model, then I pushed this out to people explaining what we were trying to do and this is the percentage of the company you would get if you invested in it. We got funding and by April 2020, I launched the product
Listen to the rest of the conversion here.
