Payday's Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Co-founder, Ogechi Yvonne Obike has announced her intention to step down from her position in the company.
She did not specify a date for her departure but stated that
she is in her “last days” with the company and that Payday has reached a point
where their growth journeys do not coincide.
Obike joined Payday as COO in February 2022. Before that,
she was Head of Partnerships at Growth Platform and Senior Operations Manager
at Venture Garden Group. At the time she joined, Payday had just raised a $2.2
million pre-seed funding round in October 2021.
"Payday was preparing to become fully operational.
However, like any early-stage startup, there was a need for someone who
understood the intricacies of building teams, people, and a solid business
structure to couple these into day-to-day processes," she wrote in a
LinkedIn post.
According to Obike, within eight weeks of joining the team,
she built Payday's first operational dashboard and encouraged open
communication and teamwork between all teams and departments.
In March 2023, Payday raised $3 million in seed funding led
by Moniepoint Inc. to expand operations and hire more employees. However,
shortly after it disclosed its seed round, Weetracker reported that Payday and
Moniepoint had agreed on a cash and equity deal under $40 million. It also said
Payday staff members would be given Moniepoint stock in exchange for staying on
the team.
Although TechCrunch had reported that the startup, which
launched operations in 2021, had received a $15 million acquisition offer from
one of the continent's unicorns, Favor Ori, the startup's CEO, disclosed that
the offer was turned down.
An executive at Moniepoint, reacting to the news refuted
reports linking it to Payday's potential acquisition, and pointed out that
Moniepoint's investment in Payday was "a strategic investment and not an
acquisition."
Payday provides options for its over 700,000 customers to
send and receive money in more than 20 currencies. Its cross-border payment
feature is perhaps its most popular feature, enabling Africans to receive
payments from outside the continent through USD, GBP, and EUR-denominated
accounts.
It also issues virtual dollar cards, which users use for
global payments, a handy feature for many Nigerians who struggle with obtaining
foreign exchange for payments.