Bhluemountain is effective, reliable, and easy to work with. Schedule a free consultation and we’ll show you why we were named one of the top IT firms in Nigeria
start Now
We are a team of top-accredited professionals who are unceasingly committed to delivering trailblazing solutions that ensure your maximum productivity. We help our customers build the core foundation for a successful and secure digital transformation journey
Quality is at the heart of everything we do, and we continuously challenge ourselves to improve our services to meet or exceed the needs and expectations of our customers, while always complying with regulations and specifications.
Whilst we have a big smile on our faces about our recognition, we never forget that our team and our clients work together as one, so thank you for all of your support.
Together with our team of accredited experts, we assist businesses in navigating their current IT estates and digital future through informed and cost-saving IT models.
At Bhluemountain we help small and large enterprises, run their mission-critical systems and operations while modernizing IT, optimizing data architectures, and ensuring security and scalability across public, private and hybrid clouds. We deploy our technology solutions and services to enable businesses drive performance, competitiveness, and customer experience.
Whatever your industry area, we provide full-spectrum IT support services to help you meet changing business needs.
Effective Cloud Solutions and strategies that help you drive overall efficiency and scale effortlessly.
Gain key insights from data to drive impactful outcomes for strategic objectives.
Technology and industry consulting expertise to help you drive your digital transformation journey.
Zubair Habib Timilehin is the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Bitoshi, a fintech startup building the infrastructure that makes digital assets and stablecoins practical for everyday payments across Africa. Under his leadership, Bitoshi has grown to serve nearly 100,000 users, delivering financial solutions that bridge traditional finance and blockchain technology while enabling individuals and businesses to transact in Africa’s digital economy. With a background in product strategy, product development, and growth, Zubair has led the creation of user-centric financial products that simplify crypto adoption and expand access to digital finance across emerging markets. His work is driven by a commitment to removing barriers to financial inclusion through practical innovation, with a particular focus on the future of digital payments, stablecoins, and blockchain-powered financial infrastructure in Africa. Explain your job to a five-year-old. Imagine you have two toys. One is really fun, but every time you want to play with it, you have to read a big instruction manual first. The other is so simple that you can pick it up, start playing straight away, and discover all the fun things it can do on your own. My job is to help build money tools that feel like the second toy. I want people to be able to send, save, and use their money—whether it’s cash or digital—without needing to think about the technology behind it. If we’ve done our job well, people won’t think about how it works; they’ll simply know it works. Why are you bullish about merging traditional finance (TradFi) and blockchain technology? What will that change about how we use financial products today? I’m bullish on the merging of traditional finance and blockchain because I don’t think the future of finance is choosing one over the other. It’s combining the strengths of both. Traditional finance has built trust, regulatory frameworks, and products that billions of people rely on. Blockchain brings global accessibility, user ownership, and the ability to move value instantly at a fraction of today’s cost. I believe we’re moving toward a future where people won’t choose between “banking” and “crypto.” They’ll simply choose the best financial experience. The technology powering that experience will become invisible. Just as most people don’t know whether a website runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Cloud, future users won’t care whether a payment runs on a bank’s rails or a blockchain. They’ll care that it’s instant, affordable, secure, and works anywhere in the world. That vision is what we’re building at Bitoshi. By combining the familiarity and trust of traditional finance with the speed and accessibility of blockchain technology, we’re creating financial experiences that feel effortless for everyday users. Blockchain isn’t replacing finance. It’s becoming the infrastructure that makes finance more open, more efficient, and more accessible. What’s the hardest part of being a founder in the digital asset space that people outside crypto don’t understand? I think the hardest part is building in an industry that’s evolving in real time. The technology moves incredibly fast. New blockchain networks and upgrades, security standards, and infrastructure are constantly emerging, so you’re always learning. What was considered best practice a year ago may no longer be the best approach today. But the bigger challenge is trust. Digital assets have unfortunately been associated with scams and bad actors over the years. As a result, legitimate businesses have to work twice as hard to earn customer trust and maintain regulatory compliance. You’re not just building a great product. You’re building a secure, compliant, and trustworthy business in an industry that’s still maturing. That’s a challenge most people outside the space don’t fully appreciate. If being a crypto startup founder was a warning label, what would it read? Don’t get too comfortable. Expect the best, but always prepare for the worst. You said Bitoshi bridges traditional finance and blockchain for nearly 100,000 users. What was your hack for achieving that scale? The biggest driver of our growth has been word of mouth. We never set out to build a product that people would talk about; we simply set out to solve the complication and fragmentation of cryptocurrency transactions. By staying focused on solving a real problem and delivering a seamless user experience, people naturally began recommending Bitoshi to their friends, family, and colleagues. That organic advocacy has been our biggest growth hack. I’ve always believed the best marketing isn’t advertising; it’s building something people genuinely want to tell others about. What’s one product-building lesson you learned the hard way? I lost about ₦4 million ($3,000) in the early stages of Bitoshi because I didn’t pay attention to a little tiny detail about the product. I quickly learned that I needed to live and breathe the product, especially in the early stage, since we didn’t have much of a team in the beginning. Even though it’s not the same case now, as I no longer have to be involved in the nitty-gritty of building, but in the beginning it was important, and I learnt that the hard way. What’s one skill every aspiring founder should develop before starting a company? I think every aspiring founder should develop strong problem-solving skills. And I’m not just talking about solving a customer problem with a product. I’m talking about solving the countless problems that come with building a business. Every founder will face challenges, whether it’s funding, regulation, hiring, technology, or acquiring customers. The difference is that successful founders don’t see those challenges as dead ends; they see them as problems waiting to be solved. You have to build with the mindset that every problem has a solution. It may not be obvious, and it may require you to rethink your approach, but there’s almost always a way forward. Many founders don’t fail because their idea wasn’t good. They fail because they gave up when they encountered the first major obstacle.
Read More
In partnership with Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية TGIFCDEUTWSWGANW. Who’s hiring this week? We did a bit of snooping around on Elon Musk’s Internet. Chowdeck, Pesa, Binance, and ARM are all hiring this week. Check the updated list on our job board. Let’s dive in. —Emmanuel Get smarter about Francophone Africa with our newsletter, Francophone Weekly—the startups, tech policies, and institutions building the pipelines for ecosystem growth. Subscribe Quick Fire with Zubair Timilehin Mr Price takes over German retailer Airtel Money sets sight on London Who secured the bag? World Wide Web 3 Job Openings FEATURES Quick Fire with Zubair Timilehin Image: Zubair Timilehin, chief executive officer of Bitoshi Zubair Habib Timilehin is the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Bitoshi, a fintech startup building the infrastructure that makes digital assets and stablecoins practical for everyday payments across Africa. Under his leadership, Bitoshi has grown to serve nearly 100,000 users, delivering financial solutions that bridge traditional finance and blockchain technology while enabling individuals and businesses to transact in Africa’s digital economy. Explain your job to a five-year-old. Imagine you have two toys. One is really fun, but every time you want to play with it, you have to read a big instruction manual first. The other is so simple that you can pick it up, start playing straight away, and discover all the fun things it can do on your own. My job is to help build money tools that feel like the second toy. I want people to be able to send, save, and use their money—whether it’s cash or digital—without needing to think about the technology behind it. If we’ve done our job well, people won’t think about how it works; they’ll simply know it works. What’s the hardest part of being a founder in the digital asset space that people outside crypto don’t understand? I think the hardest part is building in an industry that’s evolving in real time. The technology moves incredibly fast. New blockchain networks and upgrades, security standards, and infrastructure are constantly emerging, so you’re always learning. What was considered best practice a year ago may no longer be the best approach today. But the bigger challenge is trust. Digital assets have unfortunately been associated with scams and bad actors over the years. As a result, legitimate businesses have to work twice as hard to earn customer trust and maintain regulatory compliance. You’re not just building a great product. You’re building a secure, compliant, and trustworthy business in an industry that’s still maturing. That’s a challenge most people outside the space don’t fully appreciate. You said Bitoshi bridges traditional finance and blockchain for nearly 100,000 users. What was your hack for achieving that scale? The biggest driver of our growth has been word of mouth. We never set out to build a product that people would talk about; we simply set out to solve the complication and fragmentation of cryptocurrency transactions. By staying focused on solving a real problem and delivering a seamless user experience, people naturally began recommending Bitoshi to their friends, family, and colleagues. That organic advocacy has been our biggest growth hack. If being a crypto startup founder was a warning label, what would it read? Don’t get too comfortable. Expect the best, but always prepare for the worst. Getting paid in cedis just got easier for African businesses operating in Ghana. Fincra now issues dedicated GHS virtual accounts to enable businesses to collect payments. See how Fincra GHS virtual accounts work. companies South African retailer Mr Price takes control of NKD’s European operations Image Source: Tenor Imagine going on holiday and deciding, on a whim, to buy the local bakery and stay forever. That’s essentially what Mr Price has done with its latest European expansion. The South African retailer has taken control of NKD, a German retail company it agreed to acquire in 2025. The deal adds 2,156 stores across seven European countries to Mr Price’s portfolio, previously operated by NKD under its parent company, Pegasus Holding Group, which was also part of the acquisition. What happened? Mr Price announced the R9.6 billion ($569 million) acquisition in December 2025, but it only became the owner of NKD in March 2026, after securing approvals from the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and European regulators. From that point, NKD became part of the Mr Price Group. In Q1 2026, the South African retailer’s sales jumped 45.3% to R13.1 billion ($776 million), with NKD contributing R3.8 billion ($225 million) in cash sales, helping offset a much slower 3.2% sales increase in Mr Price’s South African business. Explain like I’m new here: For years, South African retailers have sought other growth avenues outside their core clothing and grocery businesses. Several companies in the same—or adjacent—bracket as Mr Price, such as Shoprite, Pepkor, Pick n Pay, Woolworths, and SPAR, have all tried other businesses, including telecoms (mobile virtual network operator), mobile phones, and even scaled-down banks. Another pattern is continental expansion. While the likes of Shoprite and SPAR have pulled back from certain foreign markets, Mr Price thinks there’s value in Europe’s retail economy. The continent offers something South Africa has struggled to provide in recent years: relatively predictable consumer demand. While economic growth across the Euro area has remained modest, inflation has eased from the highs seen after the 2021-2022 energy crisis, and unemployment has remained relatively low, giving retailers a more predictable environment to operate in. For value retailers, that makes planning inventory, pricing, and margins a lot easier. South Africa, on the other hand, has spent the past few years contending with uneven growth rates, high unemployment, elevated borrowing costs, and electricity shortages that have weighed on household spending. Why now? The maths of the deal is starting to make sense. WhileSouth African sales grew a modest 3.2%, the inclusion of NKD has supercharged the group’s overall growth. The acquisition is a hedge against a stagnating home market. Unlike previous South African retail ‘vacations’ that ended in retreat, Mr
Read More
WayaWaya, the Kenyan company building AI-powered financial services for banks and merchants, has appointed former Chase Bank Kenya executive Raj Singh as a non-executive director and board adviser. The appointment comes as the startup intends to deepen relationships with financial institutions and merchants while expanding into new African and international markets. Singh will advise WayaWaya’s board and executive team on strategy, governance and commercial growth, the company said in a Thursday statement. WayaWaya joins a growing list of African fintechs recruiting experienced banking executives as they scale into regulated financial services. In July, Nigerian fintech unicorn Moniepoint appointed former Branch Kenya chief executive Rose Muturi to lead its Kenyan business after acquiring Sumac Microfinance Bank. In April, Cellulant, a payments firm, hired former Xapo Bank executive Anthony Hernandez as chief operating officer to sharpen its expansion strategy. “Raj joins us at an important point in WayaWaya’s growth journey. His banking, fintech and international experience will be invaluable as we move from innovation to scale,” said Teddy Ogallo, founder and chief executive officer of WayaWaya. “We look forward to working with him in shaping and executing our growth strategy, particularly in expanding our network of banking partners and merchants, strengthening strategic partnerships, and taking WayaWaya into new markets across Africa and beyond.” As a board adviser, Singh will help shape WayaWaya’s long-term strategy, strengthen corporate governance, expand banking and merchant partnerships, and guide the company’s international expansion, the statement added. Singh has spent more than two decades in banking and financial technology across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He previously served as Group Chief Operating Officer and Director of Retail Banking at Chase Bank Kenya, where he led digital banking initiatives. Earlier in his career, he worked at First City Monument Bank (FCMB) in Nigeria, overseeing banking operations transformation, and spent more than five years at India’s ICICI Bank managing retail banking operations. Singh also held advisory roles, working with financial institutions and fintechs on digital banking and artificial intelligence. He is currently managing director of Rova, a consulting firm, and serves on the boards of Finova360 and Finnafrica, fintech advisory firms. He also mentors startups through venture builder FasterCapital. “I am delighted to join the Board at this important stage of the company’s journey and look forward to working with Teddy and the leadership team to strengthen strategic partnerships, accelerate commercial growth and support WayaWaya’s expansion across Africa and international markets,” said Singh. The appointment follows a long-running dispute over claims that WayaWaya was acquired by Kenyan customer experience company Ajua in 2021. WayaWaya has maintained it remained independent, telling TechCabal that the relationship was a consultancy arrangement rather than an acquisition. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
Read More
