Fara Ashiru Jituboh, co‑founder and former CEO/CTO of Nigerian fintech Okra, has exited the company just months after the launch of Nebula, its in‑house cloud infrastructure product.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Jituboh left Okra in May 2025 to become Head of Engineering at British startup Kernel.
Alongside David Peterside, she founded Okra in 2019 to build APIs enabling individuals to securely connect their bank accounts to third‑party apps. The company pioneered open finance in Africa, raising $1 million in pre‑seed from TLcom Capital and a further $3.5 million led by Susa Ventures, bringing total funding to over $15 million. Peterside departed in 2022, and the startup has yet to confirm a successor for Jituboh.
The launch of Nebula in October 2024 was a strategic response to Nigeria’s steep rise in cloud costs following naira depreciation. Okra was one of several local firms, alongside Nobus and Layer3, offering naira‑denominated cloud alternatives to global providers like AWS and Azure. As Jituboh explained in March 2025, rising FX and infrastructure costs meant that, apart from salaries, cloud services consumed most of the company’s revenue.
Beyond founding Okra, Jituboh had prior experience at Canva, BMW, and JP Morgan. Her return to Nigeria to launch Okra was driven by firsthand frustration that fintech apps she used to manage her finances did not connect with Nigerian banks.
Under her leadership, Okra integrated with major Nigerian commercial banks and platforms like Renmoney, Branch, Bamboo, and AIICO Insurance. Use of the API grew by 175% in early 2020, and by the seed round in 2021, Okra had broader ambitions to expand across Africa. Okra also pioneered open‑finance infrastructure, supporting developers in creating digital‑first experiences and financial products.
Jituboh’s departure marks the end of a pivotal chapter at Okra as it transitions from open‑banking roots into cloud services with Nebula. Meanwhile, new leadership is expected to be announced at Okra in the coming days.
