Nigerian-Founded AI Startup Minicor Raises $3.8 Million

Minicor, an artificial intelligence startup co-founded by Nigerian software engineer Saheed Akinbile, has raised $3.8 million in seed funding to help businesses connect AI applications to older desktop software that lacks modern integration tools.

The San Francisco-based company announced the funding on October 14. The round was led by IA Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, Paul Graham, Pioneer Fund, Robinhood Ventures, Garage Capital, Rebel Fund, K5 Global and 20VC.

Founded by Akinbile and Faizaan Chishtie, Minicor develops automation infrastructure that allows AI-powered applications to interact with legacy business systems without requiring companies to replace existing software or build traditional integrations from scratch.

Turning Desktop Workflows Into APIs

Many businesses rely on desktop applications for essential operations, including electronic health records, enterprise resource planning, dealer management and supply-chain systems. Some lack application programming interfaces (APIs), which allow different software applications to communicate directly.

This creates a problem for AI companies selling products to businesses that depend on these systems. Even when an AI application can perform a task, connecting it to the software where the relevant data sits can require custom engineering and ongoing maintenance.

Minicor addresses this gap by allowing developers to describe a workflow and turn it into an API endpoint. Its platform then runs the required actions through desktop automation on Windows machines or virtual environments, including Citrix.

The company says its system can recover from certain failures, verify actions and record automation sessions. These features help developers identify errors and monitor workflows as they run.

According to Minicor’s launch information on Y Combinator’s website, the startup was already processing thousands of workflows each week across healthcare electronic health records and other legacy systems. It also reported taking one customer from proof of concept to a live deployment in three weeks.

Funding Targets Enterprise AI Adoption

Minicor’s approach targets companies that want to introduce AI into established business processes but cannot easily connect new applications to existing systems.

Healthcare, financial services, automotive services and logistics are among the sectors where older software can complicate integration. By providing a connection layer, Minicor aims to reduce the engineering work required to deploy AI products in these environments.

The $3.8 million seed round gives the company additional capital to develop its platform and serve businesses that need reliable connections to legacy applications. The company has not publicly detailed a breakdown of how it will allocate the new funding.

Akinbile’s role also adds a Nigerian-founded technology business to a growing group of African-founded entrepreneurs building enterprise AI products for international markets. Minicor is based in the United States, and the announcement does not specify plans for an African market launch.

Its commercial test will be whether the platform can maintain reliable automations across different software systems as customer usage grows. For businesses, the value proposition is straightforward: adopting AI without first replacing the software that already runs their operations.