Business/Brands & Marketing
Shola Akinlade: Meet Paystack Founder who just bought majority shares in Danish football club
The Co-founder of Paystack, Shola Akinlade, has bought a 55 per cent stake in second-division Danish club, Aarhus Fremad.
Co-founder and Paystack CEO Shola Akinlade has acquired 55 percent of the ownership stake in Danish third-tier division club Aarhus Fremad.
The agreement was disclosed in a statement posted on social media on Tuesday by the Danish club.
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Aarhus Fremad will also join Sporting Lagos FC, a NNL team formed by Akinlade in 2022, as a sister club as a result of the arrangement.
“There is per today’s date an agreement has been signed between the existing ownership circle and Shola Akinlade regarding the transfer of 55% of Aarhus Forward,” the statement reads.
“Shola Akinlade is a Nigerian IT entrepreneur and CEO of the Paystack software platform. On a daily basis, he runs the Sporting Lagos football club in Nigeria, which at the same time will act as a sister club to Aarhus Fremad.”
We’re delighted to announce that we now have a sister club, @Aarhus_Fremad 💙💛.
More about the partnership on our website 👇🏾https://t.co/jAayxjojmJ pic.twitter.com/3wsnFFIAf9
— Sporting Lagos (@SportingLagos) March 28, 2023
Speaking on the acquisition, Akinlade said his investment in the Danish club is due to a “shared commitment to engaging and empowering local communities”.
Hey, @SportingLagos 🤝
We are extremely happy to welcome you into our family, and we can't wait to get started on our cooperation 💛🖤💙
See you soon 👋 pic.twitter.com/GoOFcCGS33
— Aarhus Fremad (@Aarhus_Fremad) March 28, 2023
He added that the partnership between Sporting Lagos and Fremand would “create an environment that fosters education, growth, and opportunity for our players and the community at large”.
“I am truly honoured and excited to embark on this new chapter with Aarhus Fremad and further our shared commitment to engaging and empowering local communities,” the Paystack CEO said.
“By strengthening the relationship between Sporting Lagos and Aarhus Fremad, we aim to create an environment that fosters education, growth, and opportunity for our players and the community at large. I have the utmost confidence in Lars Kruse’s continued leadership as CEO, and together, we will strive to maintain the values and long-term goals that have made these clubs such a cherished part of their respective communities.”
Aarhus Fremad was founded in 1947. The club has been in a deficit of two million kroner about N89.6 million in the last two years.
The team sits top of the Danish third-tier division after 20 games played.
Profile of Shola Akinlade
Shola Akinlade embodies the Nigerian startup dream. In 2015, he co-founded Paystack, a payments company, with an old schoolmate, Ezra Olubi. The pair set out to unblock the Nigerian digital economy by offering businesses and individuals new ways to transact online.
In November 2015, Paystack was accepted into the Y Combinator accelerator program, helping to propel it on its journey toward becoming one of Africa’s most prominent tech companies. In 2020, Akinlade and his team sold Paystack to the U.S. fintech giant Stripe for $200 million.
Since then Paystack has made small and major moves including becoming the first African payment gateway partner for Apple Pay and expanding to South Africa.
| Real name | Shola Akinlade |
| Date of birth | 26th of July 2000 |
| Known for | Co-founder and CEO of Paystack |
| Education | Babcock University Ilishan Remo, St. Gregory’s College |
| Country of Origin | Federal Republic of Nigeria |
| Net worth | $100 million |
Shola Akinlade was born and raised in Lagos State, Nigeria. He attended Saint Gregory College, where he also wrote his WAEC and obtained his SSCE certification. After secondary school, he got admission into Babcock University, Ogun state, where he studied Computer Science and graduated in 2006.
After graduating from the University, Shola got employed to work with a brewing company, Heineken, in November 2007. He worked as the company’s database manager and specialized in trainee management until April 2009, when he left the company.
In 2007, Shola Akinlade conceived the idea of Klein Devort alongside Mayowa Okegbenla (a graduate of Computer Science). Klein Devort is a Nigerian software development company. They both thought of innovating software packages and applications, and that was where the idea of Precurio began.
Precurio is an open platform for collaborative business solutions. Shola and Mayowa got the idea from Dropbox, a file hosting service in the United States that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software services.
Precurio became a success, and banks started reaching out to Shola, requesting his services. He built software applications for three different banks. Subsequently, Shola started Paystack alongside Ezra in 2016 after being displeased by the state of payments and financial transactions in Africa.
The company is currently based in Lagos, Nigeria, and California, United States. In 2020, the Irish-American company, Stripe, acquired the company for $200 million
