First-Mover, Final Breath: What African Startups Like Okra Teach Us About Ecosystem Debt

First-movers get headlines, but not always happy endings.

Okra, a fintech startup in Africa once celebrated as a pioneer in open banking in Nigeria, had the makings of a success story: millions in venture capital, a bold vision, and early traction.  Founded by Fara Ashiru Jituboh and David Peterside. Okra had the right background-Ex-Canva, JPMorgan, the right partners-Branch, Bamboo, Renmoney, and the right metrics-175% API growth and $16.5 million in backing from top global investors. But behind the headlines and traction was a truth that many founders on the continent know too well: this wasn’t just a startup story. It was a crash course in ecosystem debt.

So why did a company with a winning formula quietly shut down?

Why Did Okra Fail?

Okra’s collapse wasn’t caused by a lack of vision or effort. It failed because of something far more complex, ecosystem debt . It’s the hidden cost paid when pioneers must build not just the product, but the market, trust, the policy and infrastructure, all at once. In emerging markets, the distance between innovation and the systems required to support it is wide, and for Okra, that gap proved fatal. Okra officially closed its operations in May 2025.

Ecosystem Debt: The Startup Killer No One Talks About

For African startups, being first often requires these invisible costs that founders and funders quite often overlook:

• Founders are forced to build digital financial infrastructure from scratch.

• They educate users and regulators simultaneously.

• They navigate a regulatory landscape in Africa that often lags behind innovation.

• They must build trust in a novel product.

These costs don’t show up on a cap table. But they compound quickly and they kill companies that, in different circumstances, should have survived.

Real Stats, Real Risks

• African fintech startups faced a 37% drop in funding from 2022 to 2023, with investment in 2024 volume down 51% year‑on‑year from $864m to $419m.
  

• Between 2019 and 2023, fintech startup closures were high: approximately 20–23% shut down every two years in Africa.
  

• As of 2023, there were 678 active fintech ventures across Africa, up 17.7% from 576 in 2021 yet 68% of those are in just Nigeria, South Africa, or Kenya.
  

• According to McKinsey & Company, African fintech revenues grew by 8% per year from 2018–2023, with projected growth nearing 10% annually between 2023–2028, aiming for $47 billion revenue by 2028 from $10 billion in 2023.

What Not to Do as a First-Mover: 6 Key Lessons from Okra’s Collapse

1. Infrastructure Burns Capital, Not Growth

Nigeria's open banking regulation enforcement was delayed until mid‑2025, while currency volatility and soaring cloud costs depleted Okra’s runways according to Silicon Africa. Build coalitions, partner with accelerators, regulators, and local institutions to share the infrastructure and education load.

2. VCs Must Fund Ecosystems, Not Just Founders

African startups often raise capital in contexts where markets don’t yet exist, yet are still held to Silicon Valley growth metrics. The hard truth is VCs need to stop importing Western benchmarks into African markets. Founders deserve capital and capacity-building. Ecosystem builders must resource the unsexy work—standards, trust, policy—that startups can’t carry alone.

3. Engage The Gatekeepers, Often and Early

Ignoring the gatekeepers-the Regulators, telcos, banks they matter. Engage them early and often.

4. Do Not Underestimate Educating the Consumer on Your Product

Getting to market is only half the battle. If users don’t understand or trust your solution, it doesn’t matter how good it is, adoption will stall. Over-communicate value, security, and transparency especially in low-trust contexts.

5. Don’t Scale Before the Soil is Ready

Align growth with real market maturity. Scaling in an underdeveloped ecosystem without strong foundations, legal, technical, or relational, only magnifies the cracks. Growth can’t stick without roots.

Africa’s Fintech Landscape

Despite funding headwinds, fintech remains Africa’s fastest-growing tech sector comprising nearly 40% of the top 130 fastest-growing companies continent-wide in 2025 as published by Financial Times.

Nigeria alone accounts for 28% of all fintech startups on the continent, many of them clustered in Lagos, which hosts 23 out of 28 of Nigeria’s fastest-growing firms.

Okra’s collapse wasn’t a failure of vision, it was the cost of building too much, too early, in an unbuilt market. But every misstep leaves behind tools and lessons for the next wave.