For those looking for a more frictionless way to transfer andreceive money worldwide, there is a new crypto converter on the market. Withthe recent advent of crypto remittance companies, a group of Nigerian undergraduates banded together to stake their claim in the industry. According to TechCrunch, software experts Ben Eluan and Osezele Orukpe have been named CEO and CTO of Flux, a new crypto remittance startup that allows merchants to send and receive money from anywhere in the world. Flux allows customers to convert fiat money into crypto, which can then be delivered to persons in other countries without the need for time or costly costs.
Eluan, Orukpe, and other Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) studentsin Ile-Ife, Osun, met in their freshmen year and decided to drop out to focuson Flux full-time. Eluan explained, "We dropped out to focus on our start-up and developing it into a $1 billion company." “We believe there is a great opportunity here. As a result, we believe that doing a good job is the proper thing to do. Dropping out was unavoidable since start-ups require time.”
Through the programming club they formed at school, the pals, alongwith Israel Akintunde (VP, Engineering) and Ayomide Lasaki (head of Marketing),had been honing their coding abilities. They got their feet wet with their first internet start-up, Jobba, an e-commerce site that helped users connect with local merchants. The young scholars shut down the company after it grew to 20,000 customers due to their lack of expertise at the time about how to effectively handle start-ups.
Eluan and Orukpe were inspired to return to the sector after seeinga number of OAU alumni make it big in the tech world. “The fact that thesefounders were from our school was a major motivator for us. We'd always wanted to make something, but we didn't know what it would be. Eluan explained, "We eventually landed on Joppa, then Flux."
Eluan noted that while their parents were initially unaware thatthey were using their education funds for the business, they were supportiveonce Flux got off the ground.
Even after they left school to work full-time on the startup, Eluansaid they were still unsure if the venture would succeed and receive finance.Eluan claimed they devoted “hundreds of hours into programming” for the firm in order for it to prosper.
Flux was the first to get funding from Hustle Fund, aCalifornia-based venture capital firm, and they are now among the youngestAfrican founders to be accepted into Y Combinator's Winter 2021 cohort of early-stage firms. When asked for advicefor other ambitious young entrepreneurs, Eluan responded that if they "believe in what they do... put in a lot of work and focus on what they are doing, it will absolutely