Nigerian Startup Cuts Business Software Costs 70% for African Companies

When Babatola Awe opened his monthly software bills in 2020, he saw the same story every time: Nigerian businesses paying Western companies hundreds of dollars for basic tools like e-signatures and document management. For a consultant at Deloitte, those invoices sparked a simple question that would change everything.

"How long will Africa depend on the West to enable business productivity?" Awe asked himself. By 2021, he and co-founder Akintayo Okekunle had their answer: not much longer.

The two entrepreneurs quit their corporate jobs and launched Flowmono, an AI-driven platform combining e-signatures, workflow automation, and document management built specifically for African businesses. Their timing couldn't have been better. COVID had exposed how broken traditional work systems were, with documents trapped in locked offices and approvals stuck waiting for physical signatures.

The numbers told a clear story. DocuSign charged Nigerian businesses ₦720,000 ($480) annually. Adobe Sign cost ₦431,820 ($288). Flowmono launched at ₦204,000 ($140) yearly, slashing costs by over 70%. But Awe and Okekunle knew cheaper wasn't enough. It had to work just as well.

They made a bold decision: build everything from scratch. No shortcuts, no licensing third-party code. Every line written in-house. "Every tool, every module, every line of code is designed for Africa, but benchmarked to global standards," Awe explains.

Their commitment to quality attracted customers they never expected. Instead of startups testing a budget option, major enterprises came calling: Stanbic IBTC, UAC, CardinalStone, and Coronation Bank. These weren't companies willing to compromise on security or reliability.

Landing Stanbic IBTC took seven months of proof-of-value demonstrations, security audits, and stakeholder approvals. The Flowmono team had done their homework, studying Stanbic's workflows and where their current tools fell short. When the bank finally signed, it validated everything: African-built solutions could compete at the highest level.

The Ripple Effect

What happened next shows how one good solution can transform an entire ecosystem. Customer feedback drove Flowmono to expand beyond signatures. Between 2024 and 2025, they launched workflow automation tools and vendor management systems that cut approval times by 50% across organizations.

Today, Flowmono uses AI to summarize documents, detect risks in contracts, and create automated workflows. But the technology never replaces human judgment. "Technology should make humans more human," Awe says. "AI should handle repetitive tasks so humans can focus on strategic work."

The company's AI co-signer reads documents, categorizes them, and recommends actions based on rules set by users. It suggests, never decides. Permission always stays with people.

Awe's vision extends beyond individual companies. "If 20% of organizations use Flowmono today, we can create interconnectivity between business processes that the world has never seen before," he says. He's building an operating system for how African businesses work, proving that solutions designed for the continent can set global standards.

What started as frustration over expensive invoices became proof that African innovation can solve African problems while competing anywhere in the world. And for thousands of businesses across the continent, that's saving real money while delivering world-class tools.