She began by solving problems.

That pattern has followed her through almost every stage of her career — from her early work in technology and recruitment to the creation of Piggybank.ng, which would later become PiggyVest, and eventually to her work investing in women building the next generation of African technology companies.

Today, Eweniyi is known as the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of PiggyVest, one of Nigeria’s most recognised digital savings and investment platforms. She is also a co-founder and General Partner at FirstCheck Africa, an early-stage investment firm focused on technology companies founded or co-founded by women.

Her story is therefore bigger than PiggyVest.

It is the story of a Nigerian engineer who became an operator, entrepreneur, investor and advocate for a more inclusive African technology ecosystem.

Who Is Odunayo Eweniyi?

Odunayo Eweniyi is a Nigerian technology entrepreneur and investor best known as a co-founder and COO of PiggyVest. She is also a co-founder and General Partner at FirstCheck Africa, where she backs early-stage African startups with female founders or co-founders.

Her career has been shaped by technology, entrepreneurship and a willingness to take on responsibilities beyond a traditional job description.

Before PiggyVest became a household name in Nigeria’s fintech industry, Eweniyi had already gained experience building startups and working closely with technology teams.

That early experience would prove valuable when she and her co-founders began experimenting with a very simple question:

What if the traditional Nigerian piggy bank could become digital?

From Computer Engineering to Entrepreneurship

Eweniyi studied Computer Engineering at Covenant University, where she graduated at the top of her class in 2013.

Her academic background gave her a strong technical foundation, but her career quickly moved beyond writing code or following a conventional engineering path.

Like many young graduates, she initially faced the question of what should come next.

A traditional career was an option.

Entrepreneurship was another.

Eweniyi chose the harder, less predictable route.

Her early startup experiences taught her that building a company requires far more than having a good idea. It requires learning quickly, understanding customers, managing people and being willing to take responsibility for whatever needs to be done.

That philosophy would become a recurring theme in her career.

The PushCV Chapter

Before PiggyVest, Eweniyi was part of the founding team behind PushCV, a recruitment technology company that connected job seekers with employers.

The experience was important because it exposed her to the realities of startup building before she entered fintech.

PushCV was not simply about creating a website.

The team had to understand how employers recruited, why applicants struggled to find opportunities and how technology could make the process more efficient.

That experience also taught the team about survival.

By late 2015, PushCV was facing serious financial pressure. The founders had to make difficult decisions about the size of the company and how to move forward.

It was during that uncertain period that an entirely different idea appeared.

The Wooden Piggy Bank That Started Everything

In December 2015, a Nigerian woman shared photos online showing how she had saved money throughout the year using a traditional wooden savings box, commonly called a kolo.

The simplicity of the idea caught the attention of Eweniyi and her co-founders.

People already understood saving.

They understood the discipline of putting money somewhere they could not easily spend it.

The problem was that the traditional method was physical, limited and disconnected from the digital lives of a new generation of Nigerians.

So the founders asked a different question.

What if the behaviour could be digitised?

That question became the foundation for Piggybank.ng.

The company officially launched in January 2016 as a savings-focused platform. It was later renamed PiggyVest as the business expanded beyond savings into investment and broader financial services.

What looked like a simple product was actually addressing a much larger problem: helping people develop financial discipline.

Making Saving Easier

One reason PiggyVest resonated with young Nigerians was that it did not treat saving as a purely mathematical problem.

People generally know that saving is important.

The difficult part is actually doing it consistently.

Money arrives.

Bills appear.

Unexpected expenses come up.

Friends need help.

There is always something else to spend money on.

The founders understood that technology could create an environment where saving became easier to maintain.

Instead of simply telling people to save more, PiggyVest built features around goals, automated savings and financial discipline.

The product was designed around behaviour.

That was one of its most important insights.

From Piggybank.ng to PiggyVest

For its first several years, the company concentrated primarily on savings.

Then the business evolved.

In 2019, Piggybank.ng rebranded as PiggyVest and expanded into direct investment opportunities alongside its savings products.

That change reflected a broader ambition.

The company was no longer simply trying to help people put money aside.

It wanted to help users manage and grow their money.

That distinction matters.

Saving protects money for future needs.

Investing creates the possibility of growing wealth over time.

By combining both, PiggyVest positioned itself as a broader personal finance platform rather than simply a digital piggy bank.

The Operator Behind the Business

While startup stories often focus heavily on founders and product ideas, building a company at scale requires something less glamorous: operations.

This is where Eweniyi’s role as COO becomes particularly important.

A product can attract its first users with a clever idea.

Keeping those users requires trust.

Handling their money requires even more trust.

As PiggyVest grew, the company had to build systems capable of supporting a much larger customer base while maintaining reliability and confidence.

Eweniyi has therefore spent much of her career on the less visible side of entrepreneurship — making sure that the organisation behind the product can actually deliver on its promises.

That is one reason her story is valuable for young entrepreneurs.

Not every important founder is the loudest person in the room.

Sometimes the person building the systems, questioning decisions and keeping the company moving is just as important as the person standing on stage.

Building Trust in Fintech

Financial technology is different from many other technology businesses because the product involves people’s money.

If a social media application experiences an outage, users may become frustrated.

If a financial platform experiences a serious problem, the consequences can be much more significant.

That makes trust one of the most valuable assets a fintech company can build.

PiggyVest had to convince users that a young technology company could provide a dependable environment for their savings and investments.

That trust was built gradually.

Every successful transaction mattered.

Every customer who recommended the platform mattered.

Every month that the company operated reliably mattered.

Over time, those individual experiences helped turn the product into a much larger financial community.

Why PiggyVest Connected With Young Nigerians

PiggyVest emerged at a time when Nigeria’s young population was becoming increasingly comfortable using smartphones and digital services.

For many young Nigerians, financial products had traditionally been associated with banks, paperwork and formal institutions.

Fintech companies began changing that experience.

Instead of making people adapt to complicated financial systems, technology companies could design products around how people already lived.

PiggyVest was part of that shift.

It made saving feel more accessible and digital.

It allowed users to create financial goals and develop habits around them.

And it communicated with a generation in a language that felt less formal than traditional financial institutions.

The Bigger Fintech Revolution

It would be difficult to understand Eweniyi’s career without looking at the larger Nigerian fintech revolution.

Nigeria has become one of Africa’s most important technology markets, producing companies that have attracted customers, talent and investment from around the world.

Fintech has been at the centre of that transformation.

Digital payments, savings, lending, banking infrastructure and investment platforms have changed the way millions of Africans interact with money.

But the real significance of the sector is not simply the number of apps that exist.

It is the infrastructure being created around financial participation.

People who previously had limited access to financial tools can now interact with digital financial products from their phones.

Entrepreneurs can build companies around financial services.

Investors can reach new markets.

And consumers can increasingly expect financial services to be faster, simpler and more accessible.

Eweniyi’s Role Beyond PiggyVest

Eweniyi’s influence in African technology extends beyond her role at PiggyVest.

She is also a co-founder and General Partner at FirstCheck Africa, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on technology startups with at least one female founder or co-founder.

The motivation behind FirstCheck Africa is straightforward: talented African women are building companies, but many struggle to access early-stage capital.

FirstCheck Africa was created to help close part of that gap.

For Eweniyi, this represents a natural extension of her own experience.

She has already experienced what it means to build a company from an early idea.

Now she can use that experience to help other founders navigate the same journey.

Backing Africa’s Women Founders

Women are building companies across Africa in sectors ranging from healthcare and agriculture to financial technology, education and commerce.

Yet access to venture capital has historically been uneven.

Eweniyi has become an outspoken advocate for changing that.

Through FirstCheck Africa, she is helping create another pathway for women who want to build technology companies with the potential to scale.

The significance goes beyond the individual investments.

When more women become founders, investors and technology leaders, the ecosystem itself changes.

Different experiences enter the room.

Different products are built.

Different customers may be understood more deeply.

And younger women can see examples of people who look like them occupying positions of influence.

FirstCheck Africa and the Next Generation

FirstCheck Africa describes itself as an early-stage investor backing exceptional female-led startups across Africa.

The firm’s approach is intentionally focused on companies at the beginning of their journeys, when relatively small amounts of capital, advice and support can make a meaningful difference.

That is an important part of Eweniyi’s evolution as an entrepreneur.

She is no longer only building one company.

She is helping create an environment where other companies can be built.

That is a different kind of leverage.

A founder can build one successful company.

An investor can help dozens of founders build companies of their own.

Technology and Women’s Economic Freedom

Eweniyi’s work also connects technology with a broader conversation about women’s economic independence.

Financial freedom is not simply about earning more money.

It is also about having access to financial tools, understanding money and being able to make independent economic decisions.

That is why her work across fintech, investment and women’s advocacy fits together more closely than it might appear at first.

A woman who can save, invest, build a company or access capital has more options available to her.

And options are a powerful form of economic freedom.

The Feminist Coalition

Eweniyi is also a founding member of The Feminist Coalition, a Nigerian group founded by young women focused on issues including women’s rights, economic empowerment and political representation.

The organisation became particularly visible during the 2020 #EndSARS protests, when it helped coordinate financial support and logistics for protesters.

For Eweniyi, the experience demonstrated another side of technology.

Technology is not only about building businesses.

It can also be used to organise communities, coordinate resources and create new forms of civic participation.

What Makes Her Leadership Different?

Eweniyi’s career does not follow the stereotypical image of the technology founder.

She has not built her reputation around being the loudest person in the room or constantly chasing the next trend.

Her work has largely centred on execution.

Build the product.

Understand the customer.

Fix what is broken.

Build the team.

Keep going.

That operational mindset is particularly relevant in Africa, where founders often have to solve infrastructure, regulatory, talent and market challenges simultaneously.

Building in Africa frequently requires more than copying a successful business model from another market.

It requires adapting it to local realities.

Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Odunayo Eweniyi

1. Solve a Real Problem

PiggyVest did not begin with a complicated financial product.

It began with a familiar human behaviour: people wanted to save money but often struggled to maintain the discipline required.

The founders found a way to make that behaviour easier through technology.

That is a powerful entrepreneurial lesson.

Look for problems people already experience.

Do not create a problem simply because you want to build a product.

2. Start Small, Think Big

The original Piggybank concept was relatively simple.

But the founders did not stop there.

They continued expanding the product and the company’s ambitions.

The result was a broader financial platform serving a much larger market.

Entrepreneurs should be willing to start with a narrow problem while keeping their eyes open for the larger opportunity around it.

3. Learn Whatever the Business Needs

One of the recurring themes in Eweniyi’s early career was versatility.

Startups rarely have enough people to give every task to a specialist.

Founders and early employees often have to learn new skills quickly.

That ability to learn can become one of the biggest competitive advantages an entrepreneur has.

4. Build Trust Before Chasing Scale

Financial businesses cannot survive on growth alone.

They need trust.

When a company handles people’s money, reliability becomes part of the product itself.

Eweniyi’s career demonstrates the importance of building systems that can support growth rather than simply chasing user numbers.

5. Create Opportunities for Others

Eweniyi’s move into venture capital shows that entrepreneurship does not have to end with building your own company.

You can use what you have learned to help other people build theirs.

That creates a multiplier effect.

6. Don’t Underestimate African Talent

Eweniyi has consistently spoken about the strength of Africa’s technology ecosystem and the people building within it.

Her investment work is built around that belief.

The continent has founders capable of building globally relevant companies when they have access to capital, talent, networks and supportive ecosystems.

What Odunayo Eweniyi Means for African Women in Technology

Representation matters.

When young women see women leading technology companies, managing investment firms and shaping the direction of an industry, entrepreneurship becomes easier to imagine.

Eweniyi’s career provides that kind of example.

She has moved between engineering, entrepreneurship, operations, investment and advocacy without allowing herself to be restricted to a single label.

That flexibility is important.

The future of African technology will not be built by one type of founder.

It will require engineers, designers, operators, investors, researchers, marketers and community builders.

And it will need women in all of those roles.

Building Beyond One Company

Perhaps the most interesting part of Eweniyi’s journey is where it is heading.

PiggyVest represents one major chapter.

FirstCheck Africa represents another.

Her work in women’s advocacy represents another.

Together, they show an entrepreneur moving from building a product to helping shape an ecosystem.

That transition can be one of the most powerful stages of a founder’s career.

After learning how to build one company, the next question becomes:

How can I help make it easier for the next generation to build theirs?

Eweniyi appears to be answering that question through capital, mentorship, technology and advocacy.

The Future of African Fintech

African fintech is still developing.

The industry has already changed dramatically, but many opportunities remain.

Millions of Africans still need better ways to save, invest, make payments, access financial services and build wealth.

That means the next chapter of African fintech will not simply be about creating more apps.

It will be about building trusted financial infrastructure that works for ordinary people.

It will be about affordability.

It will be about security.

It will be about financial education.

And it will be about creating products that understand the realities of African consumers.

Eweniyi’s work sits directly inside that larger transformation.

The Bigger Story Behind PiggyVest

The most interesting thing about PiggyVest may not be the app itself.

It is the behaviour the company helped make possible.

Saving money is an old idea.

Technology did not invent it.

What technology did was create a new environment around it.

A traditional kolo became a digital experience.

Personal savings became automated.

Financial goals became easier to track.

Investment opportunities became accessible through a digital platform.

That transformation is a good example of what African fintech can do at its best.

It does not necessarily have to invent entirely new human behaviours.

Sometimes it simply needs to make existing behaviours easier, safer and more accessible.

Why Odunayo Eweniyi’s Story Matters

Odunayo Eweniyi’s story matters because it reflects a larger change happening across Africa.

A new generation of African entrepreneurs is building companies for African consumers while thinking globally about technology, capital and opportunity.

They are not waiting for traditional institutions to solve every problem.

They are building alternatives.

They are experimenting.

They are failing and trying again.

And increasingly, they are creating institutions that help other entrepreneurs do the same.

Eweniyi represents that generation.

She is an engineer who became an operator, an operator who became a founder, a founder who became an investor and an investor who continues to advocate for greater opportunity for African women.

Frequently Asked Questions About Odunayo Eweniyi

Who is Odunayo Eweniyi?

Odunayo Eweniyi is a Nigerian technology entrepreneur, investor and advocate. She is best known as the co-founder and COO of PiggyVest and as a co-founder and General Partner at FirstCheck Africa.

What is Odunayo Eweniyi known for?

She is best known for helping build PiggyVest, a Nigerian digital savings and investment platform that began as Piggybank.ng in 2016.

What did Odunayo Eweniyi study?

She studied Computer Engineering at Covenant University and graduated at the top of her class in 2013.

What is PiggyVest?

PiggyVest is a Nigerian digital savings and investment platform. It launched as Piggybank.ng in January 2016 and later expanded its services and rebranded as PiggyVest.

What is FirstCheck Africa?

FirstCheck Africa is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on technology startups in Africa with at least one female founder or co-founder.

Is Odunayo Eweniyi an investor?

Yes. In addition to her leadership role at PiggyVest, Eweniyi is a co-founder and General Partner at FirstCheck Africa, where she invests in early-stage African technology companies.

Why is Odunayo Eweniyi important to African technology?

Her work combines fintech, entrepreneurship, venture capital and women’s economic empowerment, making her an influential figure in Africa’s growing technology ecosystem.

Conclusion

Odunayo Eweniyi’s journey began with a technical education and a willingness to learn.

It grew through startup experiments, difficult decisions and a simple idea inspired by an old-fashioned savings box.

That idea became Piggybank.ng.

Piggybank.ng became PiggyVest.

And PiggyVest became part of a much bigger story about how technology can change the way Africans manage money.

But Eweniyi’s ambitions did not stop there.

Through FirstCheck Africa, she is now helping other African founders — particularly women — access the capital and support they need to build companies of their own.

That may ultimately be one of the most important parts of her legacy.

Because building one successful company is impressive.

Helping create a generation of people capable of building the next hundred may be even more powerful.

And that is where Odunayo Eweniyi’s story is heading.