Unlocking Capital for All: How Temitope Ekundayo’s GetEquity is Democratizing Private Investments
In this issue of the Upstarts spotlight series, we turn our attention to Temitope Ekundayo, a very active member within our community, The Black Builders Network, and one of its earliest champions. Much like the entrepreneurial journeys we often explore, Temitope’s vision and journey with GetEquity is a fascinating blend of ambition, ingenuity, and the occasional twist of fate. He represents a new wave of thinkers and builders in the African tech landscape, reminding us that progress is often born from collaboration.
There’s a persistent problem in the world of entrepreneurship: access to capital. The more you dig into it, the clearer it becomes that the way capital flows is fundamentally broken, particularly in places like Africa. It’s a problem that feels invisible if you’re already connected to the right people. But for most entrepreneurs—especially in emerging markets—getting funded is more about who you know than what you’re building.
Temitope Ekundayo, with his co-founder Jude Dike, saw this firsthand. He’s one of those entrepreneurs who doesn’t just see a gap in the market but genuinely cares about fixing it. His mission is bigger than just disrupting the current venture capital model—it’s about truly democratizing private investments on a global scale. With GetEquity, he’s building a platform that doesn’t just change how startups raise money; it’s making private investments accessible and equitable to anyone, anywhere, particularly across emerging markets.
The Problem with Capital
If you've ever thought, "Hey, why can't regular people invest in startups?", Temitope and Jude, thought the same thing. And they did something about it.
In theory, venture capital should fuel the best ideas. The best entrepreneurs, the ones with the most ambitious and innovative plans, should have an open path to funding. But in practice, venture capital often funds what’s familiar, what’s comfortable. The result? Capital remains concentrated in a small group of startups that check the right boxes. Worse, in regions like Africa, even those with brilliant ideas and strong teams are left struggling—not because their ideas aren’t good enough, but because they lack the right connections or proximity to the right networks.
What Temitope understands is that solving this problem requires more than just saying, “Let’s get more investors involved.” It requires a fundamental rethinking of the system itself. He knows that for capital to truly democratize entrepreneurship, the barriers preventing access need to be dismantled—not just in Africa but across emerging markets globally.
This is what GetEquity does. It isn’t just another investment platform; it’s a mission-driven initiative that represents the dream of truly democratizing private investments. Anyone, whether a professional investor or a student with $10, can be part of a venture, contributing to a global marketplace of opportunities that were previously inaccessible.
The Real Innovation: Lowering the Barriers
People often talk about "democratizing access." It sounds great, but how often do we see it actually happen? GetEquity pulls it off by lowering the barriers to both investment and fundraising.
Here’s how. Typically, if you’re a startup founder, you spend months—if not years—fighting to get a meeting with a VC firm. If you’re lucky enough to secure funding, you’ve probably spent more time fundraising than building your product. It’s a painful process that drains the momentum from a business that needs every second it can get to focus on execution.
GetEquity takes that process and flips it on its head. Entrepreneurs can raise capital directly from the crowd, and not just any crowd—people who are genuinely excited about what they’re building. This changes the game for African founders. Suddenly, they’re not stuck begging gatekeepers for a shot at success; they’re engaging with investors who share their passion and want to see them win.
This model isn’t just more efficient—it’s more human. It recognizes that the problem isn’t that founders aren’t good enough, it’s that the system was built to keep most of them out. GetEquity breaks down those walls by letting founders skip the endless networking and pitch meetings and get back to building.
And it’s not just about equity. Temitope and his team quickly realized that venture capital is just one piece of the puzzle. They’re expanding into other asset classes like real estate investment trusts (REITs) and commercial papers, giving users a wide range of options for building wealth. Essentially, they want to offer the tools that allow people to diversify their investments, minimize risk, and grow their financial portfolios.
Solving Problems with Bridges
An interesting aspect about Temitope is how personal his understanding of this problem is. He wasn’t always part of the tech or finance world. Growing up in Port Harcourt, he wasn’t surrounded by venture capitalists or tech moguls. He was curious, yes—always asking questions, always trying to solve problems—but like so many young Africans, the paths to capital and opportunity weren’t obvious.
It’s no surprise that Ekundayo’s vision for GetEquity comes from the desire to build bridges rather than walls. He understands that most problems—whether in business or in life—are solvable if you connect the right people. That philosophy underpins GetEquity’s very structure: bringing people together—investors, founders, and their communities—into a more collaborative system where capital is no longer gate-kept by a select few.
Temitope didn’t just stumble into this idea. He and Jude spent months hashing it out—at first just as neighbors in the same community, bouncing ideas off each other. Over time, they realized the problem they wanted to solve was bigger than just funding startups. It was about addressing the whole infrastructure of trust and accessibility in African entrepreneurship.
Why Trust Matters
If you’ve ever tried launching a new product in a market that’s been burned before, you know how hard it is to win people over. Africa, in particular, has seen more than its share of scams and failed ventures. So when Temitope talks about how difficult it was to convince people that GetEquity was different, it’s clear he’s speaking from hard-earned experience.
Trust, it turns out, is the real currency in fintech. Temitope understood that if GetEquity was going to succeed, it needed to be built on a rock-solid foundation of trust. From day one, the platform instituted stringent security protocols, anti-fraud measures, and compliance with Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission. These weren’t just checkboxes to tick off; they were essential components of building something that would last.
Temitope’s insight here is critical. In an environment where trust is often fragile, being overly paranoid about security isn’t just wise—it’s necessary. The slightest breach could unravel everything. But by making trust the cornerstone of GetEquity, he’s created something that can withstand the skepticism and volatility that often come with launching in a market like Africa.
Building for the Future
It’s easy to look at what GetEquity is doing and think it’s just about creating a more inclusive venture capital platform. But GetEquity is bigger than that. It’s about reshaping an entire system to be more collaborative, more accessible, and ultimately more impactful.
By allowing anyone to invest, GetEquity isn’t just democratizing access to capital—it’s democratizing wealth creation. This might be the most profound shift of all. Africa is brimming with young talent and untapped ideas. By giving these founders a chance to access capital that was previously out of reach, the co-founders, Temitope, Jude and Chigozirim Ugochukwu who became a founding partner in 2022, are setting the stage for an entirely new generation of African builders.
Temitope knows the stakes are high, and he’s not just thinking about short-term wins. His goal isn’t just to grow GetEquity; it’s to reshape the way Africa’s entrepreneurs think about opportunity. And maybe that’s the real genius of what he’s doing: he’s not just solving a problem, he’s laying the groundwork for something much bigger.
He’s not building a wall of exclusivity around capital. He’s building a bridge—one that will carry the next generation of African entrepreneurs to places they’ve never been able to go before.
And when you think about it, that’s what real innovation is all about.
Want to learn more? Visit www.getequity.io
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