# Aladdin

Africa's Digital Bank

## Elevator pitch
Our company via our super app- Aladdin supports SMEs, Freelancers and individuals with the tools (financial, commercial and social) that they need to thrive. Aladdin is an ever-evolving ecosystem of solutions designed to keep adding value to our users via continuous integration of valuable APIs, SDKs and mini-programs via partnerships. On Aladdin, our users can borrow, save, invest, make payments, get cards, get insured, buy and sell products and services and interact with other users.

- Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/aladdin
- Entity ID: wefunder:company:106143
- Last updated: 2026-06-22T05:03:28Z
- Generated at: 2026-06-22T10:59:13Z

## Quick facts
-  250K downloads, 0ver 160k Users, 40K+ loans, $2M+ in transaction volume
-  Over $300K in revenue
- 8 institutional investors: Plug & Play, Hatcher, LoftyInc, Expert Dojo at a valuation of $9M
- Over $700k already raised
- 🤝 10 strategic partnerships secured
- 💪🏿 Co-founder founding director of $2B unicorn (Opay) & CEO of Okash, 1M+ users, $120M+ disbursed
- 💫 Team has a combined 48 yrs experience in financial services, ecommerce & technology
-  $5B serviceable obtainable market (SOM), 60%+ of adults in Africa self-employed

## Active fundraises
- wefunder:fundraise:67967: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)
- wefunder:fundraise:67968: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)
- wefunder:fundraise:56487: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)
- wefunder:fundraise:56488: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)

## FAQ
1. **Good day, I have some questions: 1. Could you please brief us on licensing side, although it's examined on LI. 2. Out of the loans you provide what is the NPL as numbers and volume as percentage? 3. Do you plan to implement crypto payments/purchases and when? 4. On LI is state...**
   - Thank you Marin for your interest in Aladdin. Find below my response to your questions: 1. As an ecosystem Fintech platform, we leverage on the licence of our partners. For example, to offer financial services (Savings and Loans), we leverage on the license of our banking partner- Purple Money MFB. Also, to offer insurance and investment services we leverage on the license of our partners. As an ever- evolving ecosystem with a Pan-African ambition, this model is the best as it will allow us t...
2. **Hi Darlington, I like what I have seen so far, well done!! Am very interested. Are you full time committed to Aladdin? What is the current salaries of the founder(s) and what will it be after the raise?**
   - Thanks Boudewijn for your interest in Aladdin. To answer your question, I work full time for Aladdin and am currently on a monthly allowance of $1,750 per month. Other founders earn between $500 and $1,000 per month in allowances. Founders salary will be increased to a range between $3,000 to $5,000 per month after our current raise. We intend to focus a good percentage of the funds raised in aggressively acquiring new customers and establishing our product and brand.
3. **When do you plan to offer multinational transactions?**
   - We plan to offer multinational transactions by Q2, 2022. We intend to achieve via partnerships with licensed payment processors and gateways and other companies offering world class solutions
4. **What are the investor perks? Wefunder shows the levels all as blank.**
   - Hi Talanda, thanks for your interest in Aladdin and for your reservation. We have added the perks.
5. **For how long do you think my investment will yield a return, and how will I withdraw if I wish to**
   - Hi Esther, thanks for your interest in Aladdin and for your reservation. Investment in startups is a mid to long term affair. Investment return is usually tied to company valuation and share price appreciation and this may happen between 12 to 24 months or more depending on the startup. Some take up to 48 months or more for a liquidity event. You can choose to sell of your stake back to the company or to any other willing investor.

## Team
- Darlington Onyeagoro (Co-founder/CEO)
- David Echu (Chief Technology Officer)
- Olayemi NASIRU (Chief Finance Officer)
- Frances Ananchi (Employee Success Manager)
- Mojeed Barakat (Operations/Account Manager)
- Andrew  Oladotun (Head, Content Management)

## Recent posts
- Aladdin Digital's Investment Webinar (2023-12-07T18:16:02Z)
- Aladdin Global App (2023-09-20T22:35:39Z)
- 17 DAYS TO GO...LET'S MAKE A DIFFERENCE (2022-05-09T17:09:01Z)

## Q&A
- Q: Good day, I have some questions: 1. Could you please brief us on licensing side, although it's examined on LI. 2. Out of the loans you provide what is the NPL as numbers and volume as percentage? 3. Do you plan to implement crypto payments/purchases and when? 4. On LI is stated you have 24 employees - do you plan for more? 5. With this 1.2M round what would be the runaway sufficient for as months? What is the current monthly burn and what would be after the rise? 6. When you expect to be break even for this market? Next potential markets? 7. The US entity rising capital will be shareholder in the NG entity right? What is the current cap table, do you have an ESOP for the employees created and is it included in the current valuation? 8. How you plan to update on progress? 9. Maybe the most important question for most of the investors in the current round- how you see/imagine the future exit and would you give us right to participate/keep us in once you grow and big shatks come sniffing in? It's a great development so far and the team is strong I'm definitely in soon after the answers of the above questions. Btw,if you consider any of these Qs are not for the general public I'd be happy to sign a NDA. Best of luck!
  - A: Thank you Marin for your interest in Aladdin. Find below my response to your questions: 1. As an ecosystem Fintech platform, we leverage on the licence of our partners. For example, to offer financial services (Savings and Loans), we leverage on the license of our banking partner- Purple Money MFB. Also, to offer insurance and investment services we leverage on the license of our partners. As an ever- evolving ecosystem with a Pan-African ambition, this model is the best as it will allow us to integrate and launch new and valuable features and services via our platform quickly. 2. Out of 10,000 loans disbursed, we have 600 loans within the doubtful and lost range with a total of 6% of volume disbursed under recovery. 3. For now, since we are currently operational in Nigeria where the central bank is not favourably disposed to crypto we will not implement crypto payments, but once we commence expansion to other countries that are not hostile to the crypto world, we will launch crypto payments but that service will only available to people within geographies that are not hostile to crypto. We will commence expansion to other African countries by 3rd quarter of 2022. 4. Yes we plan to expand the team strategically by hiring for the different arms of the platform- We need experts to help manage the different offerings in the Financial Hub and we also need to fill up some specific roles in Operations, risk management, compliance, internal control, fraud control, finance managment etc. We also need to hire e-commerce and marketplace experts to manage the Aladdin marketplace and Social media and online community experts, to help manage our online community. We will also need to expand our Dev and IT team to help with the continuous building and managment of our platform. 5. Our current burn rate is $10,500 per month and we expect this to increase to $75,000 per month after our current raise as we aggressively begin to acquire new customers and also expand the team. We plan to grow 10X and increase our customer base to a minimum of 400,000 users in the next 6 months. 6. We expect to breakeven in the next 36 months. The next 36 months will be used for aggressive growth and expansion to other markets. The next potential markets are Ghana, Egypt, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa and possibly India. However, with the Social media feature of the app, we envisage spontaneous downloads from different countries of the world. 7. The US entity is the main entity of Aladdin. Shareholders in the Nigerian entity will be allocated common stocks in the US entity. However, we are still discussing with our lawyers on how best to handle this. See link our current Cap table: docs.google.com/spre…&rtpof=true&sd=true We have provided for ESOP on our cap table. 8. We plan to update our shareholders and partners with a monthly newsletter covering different aspect of our business.
- Q: Hi Darlington, I like what I have seen so far, well done!! Am very interested. Are you full time committed to Aladdin? What is the current salaries of the founder(s) and what will it be after the raise?
  - A: Thanks Boudewijn for your interest in Aladdin. To answer your question, I work full time for Aladdin and am currently on a monthly allowance of $1,750 per month. Other founders earn between $500 and $1,000 per month in allowances. Founders salary will be increased to a range between $3,000 to $5,000 per month after our current raise. We intend to focus a good percentage of the funds raised in aggressively acquiring new customers and establishing our product and brand.
- Q: What are the reward tokens used for?
  - A: They are used to play wheel of fortune on the app to win cash rewards
- Q: Do you have your own bank charter or are you partnering with an existing bank to provide your services?
  - A: We are partnering with an existing licensed bank and this is consistent with our model as an ecosystem bank. We partner with licensed providers to provide services like insurance, investment, Agency banking etc.
- Q: Hi Darlington - Thank you for answering my previous questions. Regarding customer growth, the Wefunder page indicates 10x growth by April 2022. In your answers to questions from others you stated 6 months on 12/28, then 6 - 8 months on 2/3, and then 6 months AFTER this round closes (to my question) on 2/5. What's the reason the target keeps getting pushed back? Can you share the current number of customers? How much have you grown since the Wefunder launch? Thanks again.
  - A: Hello Jeff, The April target was set before we launched the Wefunder campaign with hopes of getting funding last year to push for 10X growth, however, since we decided to go the Wefunder route, we have adjusted our expectations as per 10X growth until the campaign is over. The truth is that without funds we are not able much with respect to marketing. Once, we close this round as explained earlier, our major focus will be to grow our user base aggressively. Since we started the campaign in late December 2021 till date (6 weeks ago), we have added 3,624 new customers and this is via referrals, WOM and internal social media push by Aladdin employees without marketing spend.
- Q: Hi - Interesting company. 1. How does Aladdin compare against competitors? Who are your main fintech competitors in Africa? What are your strengths and weaknesses (please be honest about your weaknesses - all companies have them)? 2. You projected 450k customers by April 2022 (on the Wefunder page). How are you tracking against this projection? 3. How are you acquiring customers today and what is the long-term strategy? Are customers being taken away from competitors, or first time fintech users with Aladdin? 4. Can you break out the $143k 2021 revenue into buckets? 5. You plan to spend 47% of this raise for Recurrent Expenditure. What is that? I'm surprised only 13% will be spent for platform expansion at this early stage. Please explain. 6. Why did you start this company and mission?
  - A: Hi Jeff, thanks for your interest in Aladdin. Below is my answer to your questions: 1a. Most of our competitors like Kuda Bank, Sparkle, VBank, Branch, Umba, Carbon, Fairmoney etc. are still stuck with the old model of monolithic banking with only vertical structures which allows only relationship between the bank and her customers. We are offering much more to our target market. Every Aladdin customer has a profile page and access to traditional banking services, a safe marketplace, business tools and an active social community. 1b. Some of our competitors in Africa include: Kuda Bank, Sparkle, VBank, Opay, Branch, Umba, Carbon, Fairmoney, Chipper Cash etc. 1c. Our Strengths include our product differentiation. We are the only Fintech startup in Africa pioneering both social+ and ecosystem banking. We allow both vertical and horizontal relationships on our app and also provide opportunity for other organisations with valuable solutions to integrate into our ecosystem with a view to serving our customers and generating shared revenue. Our weakness lies in our limited funding which has led to our inability to meet our goals and have delayed a lot solution implementations. 2. We track customer acquisition via Google console and and our in-built dashboards. We track number of downloads, churn rate, number of completed registrations and KYCs and active customers amongst other user metrics. 3. We acquire customers via advertising on Social media, Google Ads, referrals, using influencers, in-built reward scheme etc, 4 The $143k revenue is broken down into 55% ($78.65k) from lending fees, 25% ($35.75k) from payment transactions, 15% ($21.45k) from Bills Payment and 5% ($7.15k) from marketplace transactions 5. This how we intend to spend funds raised at the close of this round: 30.5% towards Marketing (this entails spending funds in advertising on Social media, Google Ads, referrals, using influencers, in-built reward scheme etc,), 30% towards operational expenses, 13% towards platform expansion & security architecture, 26.5% towards work infrastructure and fixed assets (This entails office rentals and furnishing, purchase of operational vehicles, provision for backup electricity/power, stable broadband Internet etc.) 30% and not 47% is earmarked for recurrent expenditure which entails payment of salaries, rent, admin costs, System hosting and support, bank fees, taxes etc. 13% is earmarked for platform expansion and security designed to make our platform more robust in order to handle the planned 10X growth expected 6 months after we close the round. This budget does not include salaries and emoluments for Devs as this has been budgeted under operational/recurrent expenses. 6. We started Aladdin to support SMEs and freelancers. We want to provide SMEs with 360 degrees tools and solutions to help them thrive and this includes financial tools, a safe and robust Pan-African Marketplace, Business management tools and an active community.
- Q: For how long do you think my investment will yield a return, and how will I withdraw if I wish to
  - A: Hi Esther, thanks for your interest in Aladdin and for your reservation. Investment in startups is a mid to long term affair. Investment return is usually tied to company valuation and share price appreciation and this may happen between 12 to 24 months or more depending on the startup. Some take up to 48 months or more for a liquidity event. You can choose to sell of your stake back to the company or to any other willing investor.
- Q: What are the investor perks? Wefunder shows the levels all as blank.
  - A: Hi Talanda, thanks for your interest in Aladdin and for your reservation. We have added the perks.
- Q: When do you plan to offer multinational transactions?
  - A: We plan to offer multinational transactions by Q2, 2022. We intend to achieve via partnerships with licensed payment processors and gateways and other companies offering world class solutions
- Q: Hello, What is the method of banking transactions through your loans? Usury??
  - A: Hi Wael, thanks for your investment. We do not allow or practice usury but we facilitate trade and payments.
- Q: As an investor, it's good to see Aladdin is still thriving.
  - A: Thank you for been a part of our audacious journey
- Q: Hi Darlington, Aladdin is putting in a lot of effort to help the small business owners in Africa come online. I have reviewed a lot of material here. I am sending this message with some questions: 1. How do you plan to use the funds? 2. The projections over the year show a very high growth rate. What are the basis and assumptions used to come up with the projections mentioned? Thanks.
  - A: Hi Lalit, thanks for your interest in Aladdin. We plan to use the funds primarily to fuel our planned 10X growth in 6 to 8 months, hire relevant and experienced people especially more devs, experienced bankers and people with marketplace and Social network experience. Our projections are actually conservative when compared to similar Fintechs who have attained the number of users that will plan to attain in the next few months. Our app has a lot features with 14 established revenue lines powered by in-built incentives, so as we onboard more active users, revenue and other metrics are bound to go up
- Q: I received an email message today from Darlington Onyeagoro describing the upcoming closure of this business at the end of July followed by attempts to sell off the software as the sole asset with any value.
- Q: Hi Darlington, Thanks for your response. you mentioned that you provide tripartite transactions such as Remittance of funds into Africa, Payouts from Africa and inter-African payments. but could you please explain precisely?
- Q: Good day, I have some question about your start up. could you please tell me about your plan for becoming profitable? also please explain how you will differentiate yourself from competition? and what is your vision from 2030 about your startup? thank you
  - A: We plan to become profitable by focusing on providing multi-currency cross border payments and collections for both individual and business customers. We differentiate ourselves from our competitors because we provide tripartite transactions such as Remittance of funds into Africa, Payouts from Africa and inter-African payments. By 2030, we aim to control 10% of payment transactions in Africa.