Building a $47 million fintech to fix cross-border payments for African travellers is a massive feat. But getting past embassy visas? That’s a bug no line of code can fix. Before launching Timon, co-founders Oluwatomi Ayorinde and Chizaram Ucheaga spent years navigating the frustrations of travelling on a Nigerian passport—from rationing physical cash envelopes in India to watching bank cards fail in Paris. They channeled those headaches into building an independent multi-currency travel card, scaling to over 100,000 users across 16 African markets. But when US crypto accelerator Alliance backed the startup, familiar border barriers resurfaced: while the investment funds arrived in just two weeks, an expired US visa meant only one founder could board the plane to California. In this edition of Digital Nomads, EMMANUEL NWOSU traces how two Nigerian founders relocated to Nairobi to engineer a $47M travel stack—and why physical borders remain the ultimate bottleneck for African entrepreneurs.
Securing an invitation to Y Combinator (YC), the Silicon Valley startup accelerator, is a milestone for any startup founder—until the logistical hurdle of securing a US visa threatens to derail it.
Oluwatomi Ayorinde, co-founder of Timon, a startup that issues cards to frequent travellers, learnt this the hard way in 2016 when his previous startup, Mobile Forms, was invited to interview for YC’s California headquarters. It was his first time in the US, and he had very little time to prepare.
Facing a backlog at the American Embassy in Lagos that threatened to run out of time for their interview window, Ayorinde and his team scrambled for help. Investor Kola Aina of Ventures Platform, which had backed the startup, intervened, according to Ayorinde, reaching out to contacts who could help expedite their visa interviews at the US embassy. The embassy eventually granted the visas with days to spare.
“Have you ever tried calling an embassy line? Nobody picks it,” Ayorinde said.
Mobile Forms did not secure admission during that cycle, but the experience left a lasting impression. It was one of the many friction points Ayorinde would encounter while travelling on a Nigerian passport—a reality that led him to renew his US visa even without immediate travel plans.
The journeys that came before Timon
In 2010, Ayorinde chose India over a master’s degree. He had convinced his parents to let him pursue a three-month professional course in Systems, Applications, and Products (SAP) software, which he considered a lucrative skill at the time. Relatively few people had the certification, according to him, and studying in India was cheaper than pursuing a master’s degree.
Accessing money was the problem. His mother relied on Nigerians travelling to India to bring him cash. On one occasion, her pastor delivered it. Ayorinde kept the cash in an envelope and spent it gradually.
In 2011, he joined SAP, the German software company, and was sent to the country for a seven-day work event. He spent a full day queuing at the German embassy to submit his application, and the visa arrived so late that he missed the first two days, according to him.
“It was a seven-day event, and when the visa came out, they gave me a visa for that exact seven days,” he said.
Germany also exposed him to the difficulties of spending money abroad. Ayorinde said he relied on a GTBank dollar card, issued by the Nigerian tier-1 lender, which he could fund by swapping naira for dollars through the bank. Some payments went through. Others failed.
Chizaram Ucheaga, who would later become Ayorinde’s co-founder at Timon, had similar experiences.
In 2013, he travelled to Kenya for a week to help a US company collect data for a medical facility it was supporting. He carried cash and relied on his host to pay for things. His GTBank dollar card worked inconsistently on later trips to the UK and the US. In 2018, on a trip to France, the card failed one day, and he handed cash to another traveller who paid with a foreign fintech card.
By then, both founders had experienced the limitations of Nigerian bank cards abroad, although their travels had also opened them up to new opportunities.
Travel also changed how both men worked. Ayorinde said he conceived the idea for his first business in Kenya, which brought him back to Nigeria to build it.
“My best ideas come when I’m not in Nigeria,” Ayorinde said. “I think I started to realise that if I really wanted to rest, it was going out of the environment that I’m already used to and being in a whole different environment. That was rest for me, and that got my brain thinking, because the first idea for my first business was right there in Kenya.”
To afford more trips, he stopped planning separate holidays. He extended work trips by three to five days and covered the extra costs from savings.
Building a business for nomads
During a later visit to Kenya, Ayorinde began to appreciate what travelling did for his work. Being away from Nigeria gave him room to think, meet people, and experience different ways of living. It was during that trip that he conceived the idea for his first business, which eventually brought him back to Nigeria to build it.
Over the years, he also developed a way to travel without spending too much. Rather than plan separate holidays, he extended work trips by three to five days, using the extra time to explore while covering his personal expenses from savings. The UK was an exception. He had cousins who could accommodate him, making spontaneous visits relatively affordable.
Ucheaga said travelling also changed his expectations of everyday life. Beyond the difficulty of making payments, he began to notice the difference in public services and infrastructure between Nigeria and other countries.
“It kind of opened my eyes to see how things work in different places,” he said. “Sometimes Nigeria just sells you the short end of the stick. You just assume that that’s how it is and that’s how it will be forever. But then when you travel around, and you see that people could get a better quality of life, they can demand more from the government, and the government can do better for the people.”
Years later, these experiences would influence the founders’ decision to build Timon and eventually relocate from Nigeria to Kenya, where they believed they could build a business serving travellers across multiple countries.
Moving to Kenya
South Africa was Ayorinde’s first choice when he considered leaving Nigeria. He had visited Cape Town, liked it, and secured a South African work permit. He wanted somewhere close to home, about a six-hour flight away. He also considered the UK, but his application for a Global Talent Visa (GTV) was rejected.
Kenya won him over. He had sold his previous business, PayForce (formerly CrowdForce), which later got him into YC and was acquired by FairMoney in 2023, so he had savings to make the move. On a visit to Kenya, he met founders who convinced him that Nairobi offered better opportunities.
“I felt that I connected better with people there,” he said.
He also noticed that many venture capital firms had their main offices there. In Europe, America, or South Africa, he felt he would be “just another taxpayer”.
He returned with his wife for three weeks over Christmas to test it. By the end, she was convinced. The couple agreed to spend two to three years in Kenya, and then spend a few years in several countries.
Ucheaga was drawn by Kenya’s quality of life and growing tech ecosystem. He had spent years building businesses in Nigeria, including Clymb Technologies, an agent banking startup. But he felt a global travel business needed a clearer head than Nigeria allowed.
In Kenya, he found a different experience. When electricity failed, he said residents could call their power provider and have the fault resolved, sometimes within 30 minutes. He also found that networking happened outside formal business meetings. After work, he could play padel and meet investors or other founders on the court.
Relocating, however, came with immigration hurdles. Ucheaga said they initially considered Kenya’s digital nomad permit but eventually pursued work permits with the help of an immigration lawyer.
The move also gave both founders proximity to investors and an opportunity to build Timon, which they launched in 2024, beyond the Nigerian market.
A mobility problem that needed a solution
Ayorinde’s idea for Timon came from a London currency exchange shop during a UK trip. He had gone there to change cash into pounds when he saw an elderly man being issued a travel card. Curious, he asked why the man could not use his regular bank card. The attendant explained that the card let travellers hold different currencies and exchange money before a trip, avoiding repeated conversion fees.
It planted the thought that cards could be issued for a specific purpose outside traditional banks.
“So I would say that travelling gives you better ideas,” Ayorinde said. “You see how people live their lives very differently from what you’re used to. It also sparks conversations and ideas.”
He and Ucheaga had met in 2021 through an entrepreneurship programme at their church. According to Ucheaga, he was the first person Ayorinde called after selling PayForce. They asked more than 20 people whether they still struggled to pay when travelling abroad. Many said yes. Ucheaga said Timon connects directly to Visa, the payments giant and card issuing network, rather than leaning on bank infrastructure, a process that took more than 15 months with Visa and a bank.
They launched Timon in September 2024. By the second quarter of 2026, it had processed more than $47 million in transactions and crossed 100,000 users across 16 African markets, Ayorinde told Disrupt Africa. The startup earns revenue through transaction and service fees, as well as revenue-sharing agreements with partners.
Two founders, one visa
In July 2026, Timon secured an undisclosed investment from Alliance, a US-based crypto accelerator. According to Ucheaga, the founders had applied unsuccessfully twice and nearly abandoned their third attempt until an Alliance founder personally encouraged them to apply again.
They were accepted within hours of the interview. Alliance completed its due diligence and wired the money within two weeks, Ucheaga said.
“They move fast,” Ucheaga said of US investors. “They have a conviction. They move fast because they won’t lose this big opportunity. It’s almost like they can see into the future.”
Then came the visa limitation, as Ayorinde faced in 2016. Ucheaga could not attend the in-person sessions from Alliance in the US.
“I couldn’t go for the trip because my own B2 visa had expired years ago,” he said. “Sadly, I didn’t have the foresight like Tomi [Ayorinde] did to rush when [US President] Trump was coming in to get his own, so I couldn’t make it. There were some online sessions, so I was able to join that, and it was helpful getting [in touch with] founders who Alliance funded before, who built great stuff, learning from them as well.”
Visa restrictions remain a broader obstacle to African mobility. According to the African Development Bank’s 2025 Africa Visa Openness Index, African travellers still needed visas in advance for 51.1% of possible country-to-country travel combinations within the continent, up from 47.1% in 2024.
The cost of travelling is not limited to flights, accommodation, and foreign exchange (FX) charges. Delays or restrictions on entry can also determine which professional opportunities a traveller can pursue in person.
Ayorinde and Ucheaga have built a business that helps Africans spend money abroad. But the Alliance experience showed the limits of what they could solve. Both founders had secured a place in the accelerator. Only one could make the trip.
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