At the time we reported on Nigerian cloud startups rallying behind some proposed data rules to escape the claws of foreign hyperscalers, something about the mood felt slightly off. AWS had just undercut local competitors by enabling local currency-denominated subscriptions to its cloud services in Egypt and Nigeria. Five months later, it appears the market correction has claimed a notable casualty.
Okra, the pioneering Nigerian fintech startup once hailed as a poster child for Africa’s open banking movement, has shut down operations — just months ahead of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s long-awaited open banking regulations coming into full effect. And with it, one of the continent’s most closely watched experiments in API-led digital finance quietly drew its curtain.
Reliable sources disclosed the shutdown to Techpoint Africa this week, but the final word came from none other than Fara Ashiru Jituboh, Okra’s co-founder and former CEO/CTO. According to her LinkedIn, she exited the company in May 2025 — shortly before its final days — and has since taken a new role as Head of Engineering at UK-based startup Kernel.
“The company made the decision to wind down operations in May,” Jituboh confirmed. “It was an incredible journey; we built impactful technology, worked with some of the biggest brands across the continent, and helped pioneer open banking in Africa.”
There was no public statement from Okra, no blogpost eulogy. Just a quiet closure, as another ambitious African startup succumbs to the brutal arithmetic of growth, scale, and global competition.
A Once Shining Star
Founded in 2019 by Jituboh and David Peterside, Okra burst onto the scene with a compelling proposition: build secure APIs that allow users to connect their bank accounts to apps — what Plaid did for the US, Okra promised for Nigeria. TLcom Capital backed the idea early with a $1 million pre-seed cheque. A $3.5 million round led by Susa Ventures followed in 2021. By the time the dust settled, Okra had reportedly raised more than $15 million in total.
But Okra was more than just funding headlines. Under Jituboh’s technical leadership — bolstered by stints at Canva, JP Morgan, and BMW — the startup built integrations with Nigeria’s major banks and served clients like Renmoney, Bamboo, Branch, and AIICO Insurance. API usage grew 175% in early 2020 alone. Okra’s engineers were some of the first in Africa building serious infrastructure for financial connectivity.
The problem? API infrastructure in a vacuum doesn’t monetize like consumer fintech. And as Nigeria’s economic climate deteriorated — driven by currency freefall and swelling costs — Okra sought a pivot.
From Open Finance to Cloud Wars
That pivot came last year, with the launch of Nebula, Okra’s in-house cloud services platform. Designed as a naira-denominated alternative to AWS and Azure, Nebula was a bold response to a challenging environment. Nigerian cloud infrastructure costs were soaring, FX was bleeding balance sheets, and for a startup whose backend costs rivalled salaries, Jituboh had seen enough.
“There’s a cloud built here, for us, and it’s just as good — if not better,” she declared in March 2025. It was a David vs. Goliath moment, one echoed by other local cloud hopefuls like Nobus and Layer3.
But it was also a gamble. Building cloud infrastructure is capital-intensive, operationally complex, and not easily differentiated when AWS starts billing in naira and undercutting prices by 20%. Even MTN, with over $120 million to spend and a deep bench of business relationships, is only just now beginning to compete seriously with its Sifiso Dabengwa Data Centre.
Okra, with its team of engineers and a startup’s war chest, didn’t stand a chance.
The Quiet Goodbye
Peterside had exited as early as 2022. With Jituboh’s departure in May 2025, leadership succession became a moot point. No new CEO was announced, and the company website remains unchanged. The startup that once promised to unlock financial access across Africa leaves behind no splashy legacy, only an instructive silence.
It’s easy to call this an unfortunate end. But it’s more accurate to call it an honest one.
Okra tried to solve real problems — first in open banking, then in cloud. It succeeded in the former, failed in the latter, and was ultimately overtaken by the brutal structural disadvantages faced by most African startups operating in dollarized ecosystems with naira revenues. Local regulation, like NITDA’s proposed data localization rules, may offer some cushion to others. But for Okra, the timing wasn’t kind.
What Next for Nigeria’s Cloud Startups?
The death of Okra’s Nebula isn’t just a company failure — it’s an exemplary tale. As AWS, Microsoft, and Google make deeper forays into Nigeria’s cloud economy, local startups hoping to carve out space must brace for deeper moats, more patient capital, and an uphill climb in both price and trust.
NITDA’s proposed data classification policy could, in theory, force certain categories of data to remain within national borders — benefiting local providers. But as always, regulation moves slower than markets. And AWS doesn’t need to win all the pie — just enough of it.
As one cloud startup dies, others live on — Nobus, Layer3, Galaxy. Whether they too will be pushed to the margins or find defensible niches remains to be seen. In the meantime, Okra’s story stands as a reminder: even brilliant ideas, funded by marquee VCs and led by experienced founders, are not immune to the brutal calculus of African tech’s ecosystem.
There’s a cloud built here, for us. But sometimes, it rains hardest on the homegrown.