A Lagos based fintech startup, Bujeti, is gaining attention across Africa for helping businesses manage expenses, payroll, and payments through a single digital platform. The company was founded in 2021 by Cossi Achille Arouko after he noticed a gap in financial management tools for African companies while working as a tech lead at Paystack, a Nigerian fintech owned by Stripe.
Arouko said the idea for the startup came after observing how an American expense management platform, Divvy, helped companies manage spending with corporate cards and automated approval systems. He realised that similar tools were largely unavailable to African businesses, where expenses were often tracked through informal channels such as messaging apps and spreadsheets.
The company later shifted from its initial focus on personal finance for Africans in the diaspora to a business to business model in 2022. Arouko teamed up with co founder and Chief Operating Officer Samy Chiba to develop a platform that allows finance managers to set spending limits, approve payments, manage payroll, and track taxes in one place. Today, Bujeti says its platform serves more than 5,000 finance professionals across Nigeria and Kenya.
Bujeti’s growth accelerated after it joined the Y Combinator startup accelerator in 2023 and later raised two million dollars in seed funding from investors including Entrée Capital and Kima Ventures. The company has also partnered with the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria and the Presidential Committee on Economic and Financial Inclusion to support financial inclusion initiatives, as it aims to become a digital finance management platform for businesses across Africa.