Odunayo Eweniyi

If no one will bet on women, we’ll bet on each other.

On December 31, 2015, a Nigerian woman posted her savings hack on Twitter: ₦1,000 every day in a wooden kolo box.

Total haul? ₦365,000.

Odunayo Eweniyi replied to the tweet with an idea.

What if this wasn’t just a habit? What if it was a product?

By January 7, 2016, Odunayo and her co-founders launched Piggybank.

But Nigeria didn’t trust fintech.

So Piggybank had to earn it.

They handled customer complaints one by one.

They operated like a bank, without being one.

By 2019, they rebranded as PiggyVest, layered on investment tools, and scaled to millions of users.

By 2025, Nigerians were saving ₦47,000 every second.

And PiggyVest had paid out ₦2.6 trillion in the first half of the year alone.

But while Odunayo was helping people build wealth, women founders still couldn’t access it.

So she launched FirstCheck Africa.

A venture fund built by women, for women.

Pre-seed, belief-stage capital.

Since 2021, FirstCheck has backed 15+ women-led startups.

But the goal was never just funding.

It was permission.

To start. To build. To be taken seriously.

And when the #EndSARS protests erupted in 2020, she co-founded the Feminist Coalition.

Bitcoin donations, medical aid, and legal support for thousands of protesters.

TIME called her one of the Next 100.

Bloomberg named her a New Economy Catalyst.

And Forbes listed her on Africa’s 30 Under 30 and New Wealth Creators.