The tech entrepreneur has an extensive experience in the African tech industry with renowned software development skills. 

Cossi Achille Arouko (photo) is a Beninese entrepreneur and computer scientist. He is the founder and CEO of fintech startup Bujeti, which enables African emigrants to plan, organize and track the funds they send to their relatives back home.

Though initially dedicated to emigrants only, the fintech startup (founded in 2021) was later expanded to cater to even Africans living on the continent because Cossi noticed that the diaspora was not the only group affected by the management problems he was addressing. Most African businesses were affected too.

"At the heart of Bujeti is the desire to bring transparency to financial transactions, to promote accountability, and enable control. [...] We wanted the Black Tax to be less of a burden on the diaspora, and then realized that we would have even more impact by offering this solution directly to African businesses. We decided to pivot to a full-fledged B2B budgeting and expense management for the African market," he said back in 2022.

His startup, Bujeti, is among the 94 companies that will participate in the Winter 2023 cohort of startup accelerator Y Combinator. The selection entitles the fintech startup to US$500,000 support and more exposure to international investors. 

In 2018, the tech entrepreneur co-founded OyaPay, a fintech startup he served as the chief technology officer till 2019. He also co-founded Skylar Labs that enables helps SMEs build their cross-platform chatbots to engage clients.

He entered the professional world as a software development intern at Bénin Télécoms SA, in 2011 and 2012.  He also did a 7-month internship at AREVA NP, in 2014, where he worked in the development team of a mechanical calculation and piping software. In 2016, he completed an engineering internship in the research and development department of the digital studio Oyez in Paris.

From December 2017 to July 2018, he was a full-stack developer at the artificial intelligence startup Smartly. AI. In 2019, he joined the Nigerian fintech company Paystack as a senior software engineer before becoming the tech lead in 2020.

Melchior Koba