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  • Lagos, Nigeria
  • Info@bhluemountain.com
  • Office Hours: 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM Mon - Fri
  • May 10 2025
  • BM

Day 1–1000: How Tunde Akin-Moses built Sycamore from his living room

What does it really take to build a startup in Africa—from the first idea to the thousandth day? In Day 1–1000, we follow founders through the raw, unfiltered journey of company-building: the early scrambles, the quiet breakthroughs, the painful pivots, and the milestones that shape what a business becomes. In this inaugural edition, we sit with Tunde Akin-Moses, co-founder of Sycamore, to unpack how a simple lending idea grew into one of Nigeria’s quietly resilient fintech stories. Day 1: A loan, a list and a leap Tunde Akin-Moses didn’t set out to become a fintech founder.  But ever since his days working in credit at a consulting firm, he had noticed a persistent gap in Nigeria’s lending system—one that seemed to punish the people who needed credit most. Before Sycamore, he was comfortably employed at a major consulting firm and moonlighting as a small laundry business owner. But the Nigerian credit system treated those two roles very differently. “As a nine-to-five employee, banks lined up to give me loans. But when I needed a loan for my side hustle, even with similar revenue, it was impossible,” he recalled. The disparity nagged at him, but it was not enough to quit his job. That push came later, at Lagos Business School, where he was enrolled in an MBA program that would alter the trajectory of his life. During a case study on African fintechs serving SMEs, Akin-Moses discovered a stat that stunned him: SMEs accounted for just 1% of all bank credit in Nigeria.  Along with his classmates—Mayowa Adeosun and Onyinye Okonji—who would later become his co-founders, Akin-Moses began testing ideas for a solution. Akin-Moses and his cofounders first explored about three ideas. First, they thought to give out educational loans to MBA students, but the capital required for such large ticket sizes was prohibitive. “It didn’t make sense to fund two students when we could help twenty small businesses instead,” he said. The team pivoted early.  Inspired by Lending Club and Prosper in the U.S., they stumbled upon peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and realized its promise: a tech-enabled platform where individuals could pool their money to lend directly to others—typically small businesses or consumers—without relying on banks or traditional financial institutions. The model was radical but lean. It sidestepped the need for a banking license, required minimal capital, and thrived on the power of distributed trust and digital efficiency. So they launched Sycamore from Akin-Moses’ living room.  Sycamore’s co-founders, Onyinye Okonji (L) and Mayowa Adeosun (Center) in Tunde Akin-Moses’ (R) living room where the startup launched. Akin-Moses and his co-founders used their combined savings and raised around $50,000 from friends, family, and LBS classmates to start issuing microloans to SMEs. While the company couldn’t afford engineers at the beginning to build its own custom tool, it modified a third-party platform and began lending in 2019.  Sycamore disbursed its first loan—about ₦1.5 million, or ~$4100—in 2019. The company would get its first 100 customers from its Lagos Business School Network.  “We had a lot of goodwill when we started. You know people were always using us as a point of reference. And being from LBS also really helped,” Akintunde recounted.   Sycamore’s major validation came in 2020. A lender who had been watching the company quietly approached to invest ₦100 million ($260,000 at the time)—ten times the size any previous investor had committed to the company. “That was when we knew the scale of the business had changed,” Akin-Moses said.  Get the best African tech newsletters in your inbox Country Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Antarctic Territory British Indian Ocean Territory British Virgin Islands Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Canton and Enderbury Islands Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos [Keeling] Islands Colombia Comoros Congo – Brazzaville Congo – Kinshasa Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Côte d’Ivoire Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Dronning Maud Land East Germany Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories French Southern and Antarctic Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and McDonald Islands Honduras Hong Kong SAR China Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Johnston Island Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macau SAR China Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Metropolitan France Mexico Micronesia Midway Islands Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar [Burma] Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles Neutral Zone New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island North Korea North Vietnam Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pacific Islands Trust Territory Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Panama Canal Zone Papua New Guinea Paraguay People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen Peru Philippines Pitcairn Islands Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Réunion Saint Barthélemy Saint Helena Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Martin Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands South Korea Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria São Tomé and Príncipe Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu U.S. Minor Outlying Islands U.S. Miscellaneous Pacific Islands U.S. Virgin Islands Uganda Ukraine Union of Soviet Socialist Republics United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Unknown or Invalid Region Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Wake Island Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen

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