Timon’s founders built a travel fintech after struggling to pay abroad

In India, Oluwatomi Ayorinde sometimes had to wait for someone travelling from Nigeria to bring him cash. Years later, on a trip to France, his future business partner, Chizaram Ucheaga, had to hand money to another traveller after his bank card failed. Both men were travelling abroad, but neither could always rely on their bank cards to pay for everyday expenses. Those experiences eventually led them to build Timon, a fintech offering multi-currency travel cards.

The company launched in September 2024. By the second quarter of 2026, it had processed more than $47 million in transactions and signed up over 100,000 users across 16 African markets.

The problem with paying abroad

Ayorinde's experience goes back to 2010, when he travelled to India for a professional course in SAP software. His mother sent him money through people travelling to the country, sometimes relying on personal connections to get it to him. His work later took him to Germany, where he used a GTBank dollar card. It was not always reliable. Some payments went through, while others failed. Ucheaga ran into much the same problem on trips to Kenya, the UK and the US. In France in 2018, his card failed and he had to rely on another traveller's foreign fintech card to complete a payment.

The two had also dealt with the other frustrations that come with international travel, including visa delays and the cost of exchanging money. They were familiar with the workarounds people used when ordinary banking services fell short. Ayorinde got another reminder of the visa problem in 2016. His previous startup, Mobile Forms, was invited to interview for Y Combinator in California, but the team struggled to get US visa appointments in time. An investor helped them secure appointments, and their visas came through just days before the interview window closed.

Why Nairobi made sense

When Ayorinde began considering a move out of Nigeria, South Africa was among his first choices. He had visited Cape Town and secured a work permit. He also tried to move to the UK, but his Global Talent Visa application was rejected. Kenya eventually won him over. On a visit to Nairobi, he met founders and investors and saw a technology community he wanted to be part of. He returned with his wife for three weeks over Christmas to see how living there might work. They agreed to spend two to three years in the country.

Ucheaga had also spent years building businesses in Nigeria, including Clymb Technologies, an agent banking startup. He saw Kenya as a suitable base for a company that wanted to serve customers across several countries. For the founders, the move was about more than where to register a business. Nairobi put them closer to investors and other entrepreneurs, although relocating still meant dealing with immigration requirements. They eventually applied for work permits with help from an immigration lawyer.

From a currency exchange shop to Timon

The idea for Timon came to Ayorinde during a trip to London. At a currency exchange shop, he saw an elderly man being issued a travel card. He learnt that the card allowed its owner to hold different currencies and exchange money before travelling. It was a simple concept, but one that addressed a problem he already knew. A card designed for international spending could give travellers another option when their regular bank cards failed or currency conversion became expensive.

Ayorinde and Ucheaga had met in 2021 through an entrepreneurship programme at their church. After Ayorinde sold his previous business, PayForce, he approached Ucheaga about the idea.

They spoke to more than 20 people to find out whether other travellers faced similar problems. Many said they did. Getting the product off the ground took time. Timon spent more than 15 months working with Visa and a bank to establish a direct connection to Visa's card network. The company launched in September 2024 and earns revenue from transaction and service fees, along with revenue-sharing agreements with partners.

Getting the funding was easier than getting a visa

In July 2026, Timon secured an undisclosed investment from Alliance, a US-based crypto accelerator. The founders had applied twice before and failed. They nearly abandoned a third attempt before an Alliance founder encouraged them to apply again. They were accepted within hours of their interview, and the money arrived within two weeks after due diligence, according to Ucheaga.

But the accelerator's in-person sessions in the US presented another problem. Ucheaga's B2 visa had expired, so he could not travel. He joined online sessions instead and connected with other founders backed by Alliance. The experience was frustratingly familiar. Ayorinde had already seen how visa delays could threaten a business opportunity when Mobile Forms applied to Y Combinator a decade earlier. The restrictions also affect travel within Africa. The African Development Bank's 2025 Africa Visa Openness Index found that travellers needed visas in advance for 51.1% of possible country-to-country travel combinations on the continent, up from 47.1% in 2024.

For founders trying to build businesses across borders, these rules can affect which meetings they attend, which investors they meet and which programmes they can join. Timon was built to make spending abroad less troublesome. Yet even after securing international backing, its founders still had to deal with the paperwork that determines whether they can get on a plane.