EMMANUEL GBOLADE

Here’s someone who’s absolutely crushing it. Emmanuel Gbolade. This guy’s the real deal in the African startup scene. So, he started out with a background in urban and regional planning, yeah, like designing cities and stuff, but that kinda shows he’s always been into controlled design and making things work smoothly. But then, he jumped into tech, which is a whole different ballgame.

Back in 2014, Emmanuel co-founded Termii with his buddy Ayomide Awe. At first, they were just doing digital marketing support, kinda like helping companies get their online game on point. But Emmanuel saw a bigger picture. He pivoted the whole thing into this multi-channel communication platform for African businesses, think SMS, email, voice, instant messaging, you name it. Basically, he built the “Twilio for Africa”, a platform that makes it mad easy for African companies to talk to their customers. And trust me, that’s a big change.

What’s crazy is that Termii blew up quickly. They raised $3.65 million to push customer involvement across the continent. And Emmanuel didn’t just stop there, he got into Y Combinator in Winter 2020, which is a huge badge of honor. That opened doors to expand Termii to places like San Jose, Lagos, and Abidjan. Basically, he took an idea from Nigeria and scaled it to the world stage.

But here’s what’s really interesting, Emmanuel’s process isn’t just about tech. It’s about his hustle and vision. He saw a problem: African businesses didn’t have affordable, reliable ways to communicate with their customers. So, he built a platform to solve that. His mission? Make tech that’s cheap and works well for millions of businesses, not just in Africa but everywhere.

Plus, he’s involved in other ventures too, Aidi Ventures, Accounteer, Heels.com.ng, showing he’s all about building ecosystems, pushing innovation, and having an effect. Even though Termii is his most famous startup, his story’s really about that relentless drive to create, solve big problems, and scale beyond borders.

Bottom line? Emmanuel Gbolade is a tech builder who jumped from city planning into creating tools that connect millions. He’s proof that if you see a problem, no matter how big or small, and you’re willing to pivot and hustle, you can build something that really matters. No Cap.