Ogechi Yvonne Obike has announced her intention to step down as Payday's Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Co-founder.
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.
Suggested read: Payday suspends virtual card partnership with Mastercard, directs users to Visa
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."
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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.
