TL;DR
- Was additional $750,000 invested into Thepeer? NO
- Was seed fund used to acquire cars? NO
- Did we fraudulently or legally pocket ~$750,000? NO
- Did we move to another country with investors approval? YES
- Did our investors sign our letters to support that move? YES
- Were we contacted by any agency based on any "misgivings"? NO
The Beginning
Thepeer was born out of the idea that wallets in Nigeria should be able to transact with each other away from the traditional banking rail.
This first seed of this idea came from my conversation with @chykeofafrica in November of 2020 when I was in Kigali oblivious to the fact that interbank transfers are down in the country, we spent almost 40 minutes on the call with 70% of that call being rants.
March 2021, I and Sultan registered a company called Omoo Africa Limited based on the trending word "omo" at the time to build a payroll system with the promise that he could get this to be used by a bunch of companies, but this didn't take off but the registration remained valid.
March 11 2021, I built the POC of Thepeer and shared the progress on my instagram story. When I woke up much later in the day, I called Chike and told him about what had been done and how it relates to the problem we spoke about in November and possibilities of handling product and design then I called Sultan and told him this was a better idea than the proposed Omoo based on the fact that we had tried to do something before and would be suited to sell the product due to the clout he has in the industry.
Consolidation
When you start something new, roles aren't always clearly defined, but each of us had a natural focus. I handled the technical side, Chike handled product and design, and Sultan was responsible for operations and business development.
We were fortunate to secure pre-seed funding from three angel investors, which allowed us to hire additional engineers. We launched Send, then Direct Charge. Chike was producing designs, the engineering team was shipping product, but Sultan wasn't pulling his weight. This lingered for about a year.
Living in the same house made it visible. His energy seemed more focused on TalentQL (now AltSchool), and he didn't want to be publicly associated with Thepeer.
We spoke to him numerous times about his responsibilities. The company needed someone dedicated to business development. When we could no longer cope with the lapses, we asked him to step aside so we could hire a replacement. He agreed and acknowledged he could have done more.
We chose to address his equity later to avoid distraction.
This made him a non-operational member of the company, though he remained in the house and we continued as friends.
Seed
We were fortunate to raise a seed round announced at $2.1 million. However, after all SAFEs were signed, one investor did not commit their $750,000.
Both parties wanted to close the deal. The investor wanted us to convert to a priced round, which meant agreeing on different terms and a new valuation. We initially agreed.
During this period, we launched Send on the dashboard. We noticed businesses using Thepeer in ways we hadn't anticipated, opening up a new vertical outside our original B2B2C scope. We explored it, and months later it started bearing fruit.
But it became a distraction. We decided to kill the feature and redirect focus back to Thepeer's original use case.
Meanwhile, the priced round negotiations dragged on. A lower commitment, legal costs, and endless back and forth. The market had also shifted. B2C payment apps, our intended customers, were quietly dying in Nigeria. What was once seen as a promising idea was now viewed as a gamble.
We walked away from the deal, communicated this to our investors, and refocused on the product.
We never received that $750,000. There was nothing to fraudulently transfer.
Where we went wrong
We didn't handle the separation properly.
We treated Sultan as a friend we could reason with, not as a shareholder entitled to information. We stopped including him in monthly investor updates because he was no longer operational. But that distinction wasn't his to make. The lack of communication bred speculation, which turned into allegations.
We also never implemented vesting. When Sultan stepped aside, there was no structure in place to address his equity cleanly. That was a mistake.
This should never have happened.
On a personal note, I believe something unrelated to Thepeer occurred between all three of us in January 2024 that made this personal. But that's speculation on my part.
"It's always if, if, if, right? If my mum had balls, she would be my dad. It's how it goes in racing. Sometimes it works out for you, sometimes it doesn't." — Max Verstappen (2024)
Present Day
We've had third parties mediate this dispute.
In November 2025, we sent Sultan logins to all company accounts. In mid-December, we shared complete bank statements and financial records. Every dollar is accounted for. The allegations are demonstrably false.
What should happen next?
The facts have been presented. A retraction of the false allegations would be appropriate.
Final thoughts
When there's a whiff of theft at a company, investors are the first to speak up. Ours haven't, because there's nothing to speak up about.
The media ruckus in 2024 after we announced the shutdown was artificial. It was instigated by Sultan Bolaji Akintunde.
Signatures were gathered under the guise of a noble cause. The real intention was to hand it to the press with a story: "Investors request audit of The Peer's finances and cap table" on Techcabal.
Investors whose signatures were on that document, and those whose weren't, viewed this as malicious. They wanted no part in it.
Finally, I have no record of Linda as an angel investor in Thepeer. Perhaps she was part of a syndicate I'm not aware of.
"If you built yourself a myth, you'd know just what to give, materialise or let the ashes fly"
— Beach House, Myth
I won't be addressing this further.
Regards
Trojan 𓂀
"Before Nothing, there was me"
Appendix
Art:
Music:
- Flipturn - Space Cowboy (Apple Music, Spotify)
- Beach House - Myth (Apple Music, Spotify)
- Soda Blonde - Going Out (Apple Music, Spotify)
