# Shola Akinlade

> Shola Akinlade is a pre-seed investor at Paystack (San Francisco) backing FinTech and Education. See 12 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Paystack](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/paystack)
- Location: San Francisco, United States
- Total investments: 12
- Last investment: Jun 2026
- Lead investor: 0%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shollsman/
- X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/shollsman
- Website: https://x.com/shollsman  Ikeja, Lagos 

Shola Akinlade is a pre-seed investor at Paystack in San Francisco focused on FinTech and Education. Shola Akinlade s based out of Sunnyvale, California and currently works as the CEO for Paystack.

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $2.5M–$4M |
| Pre-Seed | $192k–$4M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| FinTech | 3 | 25% |
| Education | 2 | 17% |
| Insurance | 2 | 17% |
| Financial Services | 2 | 17% |
| Software | 1 | 8% |

19 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pre-Seed | 8 | 67% |
| Seed | 2 | 17% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Nigeria | 4 | 33% |
| Kenya | 1 | 8% |
| Rwanda | 1 | 8% |
| Estonia | 1 | 8% |
| United States | 1 | 8% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Myka.Insure | Myka is a insurance sales platform that enables individuals to sell insurance policies to their family, friends, colleagues, and community while earning income . It operates as a micro-entrepreneurship program where anyone (students, gadget sellers, car dealers, parents, retirees) can start their own insurance business with zero investment,flexible hours, and free training . The company is licensed by the National Insurance Commission of Nigeria and provides instant payouts to its partners . |  | Pre-Seed | Jun 09, 2026 |  |
| Chowdeck | Chowdeck is a food delivery service and marketplace to buy meals from a wide range of restaurants. | $2.5M | Seed | Apr 30, 2024 |  |
| Afropolitan | Afropolitan is creating a Digital Nation to enable all Africans to build abundant lives. The internet enables people to organize around shared values at scales that were previously unthinkable before the turn of the century. If it were a country, Facebook would be the largest one in the world. With the advent of cryptocurrency, the next Facebookwill not be a social network with a passive online community, but rather a full-blown digital country with its own native currency and shared purpose. We are building the first-ever internet country. | $2.1M | Pre-Seed | Jun 20, 2022 |  |
| Afropolitan | Afropolitan is creating a Digital Nation to enable all Africans to build abundant lives. The internet enables people to organize around shared values at scales that were previously unthinkable before the turn of the century. If it were a country, Facebook would be the largest one in the world. With the advent of cryptocurrency, the next Facebookwill not be a social network with a passive online community, but rather a full-blown digital country with its own native currency and shared purpose. We are building the first-ever internet country. | $2.1M | Pre-Seed | Jun 20, 2022 |  |
| Norebase | Norebase knows that there's an opportunity to grow successful businesses in Africa. It also understands the complexities of the market, and so is using technology to make doing business in Africa worthwhile. With Norebase get to operate in Africa with no hassle and with minimum risk. | $1M | Pre-Seed | May 04, 2022 |  |
| Casava | Casava is a financial services company that offers insurance and life microinsurance. Casava uses technology to provide world-class, trusted, and affordable insurance to everyone. | $4M | Pre-Seed | Feb 02, 2022 |  |
| Earnipay | Earnipay enables employers to offer employees access to their earned salaries instantly at any time without making changes to their existing payment process. | $4M | Seed | Feb 02, 2022 |  |
| AltSchool Africa | We are democratizing access to quality education for the next billion Africans. | $1M | Pre-Seed | Feb 01, 2022 |  |
| AltSchool Africa | We are democratizing access to quality education for the next billion Africans. | $1M | Pre-Seed | Feb 01, 2022 |  |
| Alvin | Alvin is a U.S.-domiciled fintech that specializes in revenue orchestration tools that stitch together fragmented financial and operational infrastructure in emerging markets. | $780K | Pre-Seed | Jan 05, 2022 |  |

10 of 12 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Voltron Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/voltron-capital) — VC Fund, 4 deals together
- [Future Africa](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/future-africa) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Ingressive Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ingressive-capital) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Microtraction](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/microtraction) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [ODBA](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/odba-co-ventures) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Startup Wise Guys](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/startup-wise-guys) — VC Fund, 3 deals together

## About Paystack

VC Fund · Ikeja, Nigeria

Paystack lets businesses in Africa accept payments by anyone, anywhere in the world via credit card, debit card, money transfer, and mobile money on their websites or mobile apps. It specializes in the fields of financial services, the internet, and payments. The company was founded in 2015 and headquartered in Ikeja, Lagos.

5 contacts available at Paystack.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Abiola Showemimo | Operations Lead | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/abiola-showemimo |
| Oluwaseun Runsewe | Business Lead | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/oluwaseun-runsewe |
| Parth Setya | Engineering Manager | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/parth-setya |
| Shola Akinlade | Co-Founder and CEO | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/shola-akinlade |
| Celestine Omin | Engineering Manager | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/celestine-omin |

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## FAQ

### What does Shola Akinlade invest in?

Shola Akinlade invests primarily in FinTech, Education and Insurance startups, most often at Pre-Seed and Seed stage. Most of the 12 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in Nigeria. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### What is Shola Akinlade's check size?

Shola Akinlade typically joins rounds of $2.5M–$4M at Seed and $192k–$4M at Pre-Seed. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Shola Akinlade participates in.

### When did Shola Akinlade last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Shola Akinlade closed in Jun 2026. Shizune tracks 12 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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