After Two Startup Shutdowns, Nigerian Founder Adebanji Oluwatoni Is Betting Big on Africa’s Creator Economy With CloutEye
After losing two startups to regulatory hurdles, Nigerian entrepreneur Adebanji Oluwatoni refused to give up. Instead, he turned years of hard-earned lessons into CloutEye, a social intelligence platform designed to help African creators, brands, and businesses understand what truly drives online engagement.
For many founders, shutting down one startup can be enough to end an entrepreneurial journey. For Adebanji Oluwatoni, it became the foundation for building something bigger.
The Nigerian entrepreneur and founder of CloutEye has experienced the highs of rapid startup growth and the crushing reality of regulatory shutdowns not once, but twice. Yet, rather than walking away from entrepreneurship, Oluwatoni chose to rebuild, this time targeting one of Africa’s fastest-growing sectors: the creator economy.
As social media increasingly shapes business, entertainment, and culture across the continent, Oluwatoni believes African creators deserve tools built specifically for their market.
Who Is Adebanji Oluwatoni?
| Details | Information |
|---|---|
| Name | Adebanji Oluwatoni |
| Nationality | Nigerian |
| Profession | Entrepreneur, Founder |
| Current Startup | CloutEye |
| Previous Startups | Growly, Hivestak |
| Educational Background | Political Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana |
| Industry Focus | Fintech, Cryptocurrency, Creator Economy |
From Gaming Curiosity to Building Technology Products
Oluwatoni’s relationship with technology started long before he considered becoming a founder.
Growing up in a middle-class family, access to gaming consoles and technology wasn’t always easy. When a family member eventually bought him a PlayStation console, he quickly discovered that owning the hardware was only part of the experience.
Without access to games, he began exploring the internet independently, learning how to download games, burn CDs, and navigate online communities. Looking back, he believes those early experiences unintentionally taught him some of the fundamentals of technology and digital problem-solving.
Although he later enrolled at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana to study Political Science, his exposure to students building websites and digital products changed his perspective entirely.
Seeing people transform ideas into functioning products opened his eyes to a different possibility: technology wasn’t just something to consume; it was something to create.
Building Growly: A Fintech Startup That Grew Fast
After returning to Nigeria following graduation, Oluwatoni became increasingly interested in solving local financial problems.
While trying to establish himself professionally, he experienced firsthand the convenience and challenges of Nigeria’s growing digital lending ecosystem. At the same time, he noticed many individuals who had money to invest but lacked trustworthy investment opportunities.
Together with a co-founder he had known from KNUST, he began exploring a solution that would bridge both sides of the market.
That idea became Growly, a fintech startup focused on connecting borrowers and investors.
The journey wasn’t glamorous.
The founders had no investors, no formal roadmap, and little startup experience. According to Oluwatoni, they often relied on Google searches to understand how fundraising, product development, and startup operations worked.
Despite these limitations, Growly gained traction rapidly.
Growly’s Early Growth
| Metric | Performance |
|---|---|
| Initial Funding | Approximately $4,000–$5,000 |
| First Week Users | Nearly 1,000 |
| Peak Daily Active Users | Around 17,000 |
| Business Model | Fintech lending and investment platform |
The startup quickly attracted users and generated revenue. However, its growth was interrupted when Nigeria introduced stricter regulations requiring digital lenders to obtain expensive licenses and maintain significant capital reserves.
For a bootstrapped startup operating on limited funding, compliance was simply impossible.
Eventually, the team made the difficult decision to shut down Growly.
Hivestak: A Second Attempt Ended by Regulation
Despite the disappointment of closing Growly, Oluwatoni and his team remained committed to entrepreneurship.
As cryptocurrency adoption accelerated across Africa, they identified another opportunity.
They launched Hivestak, a platform designed to connect African users with decentralized finance (DeFi) products, including lending and staking services that were often inaccessible due to geographical restrictions.
Unlike many crypto platforms that focused primarily on trading, Hivestak aimed to provide broader financial access through blockchain infrastructure and smart contracts.
This time, the founders entered the market with valuable lessons from their previous experience:
- Stronger product development skills
- Better understanding of customer needs
- Improved operational efficiency
- Greater technical expertise
- Experience building with limited resources
Again, early user feedback was positive.
However, as Nigeria’s regulatory approach toward cryptocurrency evolved, new compliance requirements created another major obstacle.
For the second time, Oluwatoni found himself shutting down a company due to factors largely outside his control.
Turning Failure Into Experience
Experiencing two startup shutdowns forced Oluwatoni to confront difficult questions about entrepreneurship, resilience, and self-belief.
According to him, the emotional impact of closing multiple companies can create serious doubts about one’s abilities and future prospects.
However, with time, he came to view both experiences differently.
Rather than seeing Growly and Hivestak as failures, he began viewing them as practical education in:
- Product development
- Customer behavior
- Startup operations
- Regulatory risk management
- Leadership
- Personal resilience
Those lessons would eventually shape his next venture.
Why Oluwatoni Built CloutEye
After shutting down Hivestak, Oluwatoni and his co-founders deliberately avoided launching another startup immediately.
Instead, they spent time building products for other businesses and founders while observing changes occurring across Africa’s digital economy.
One trend stood out.
The creator economy was exploding.
Content creators were building careers online. Brands were increasing their digital marketing budgets. Businesses were investing heavily in social media campaigns.
Yet despite the growing investment, most creators and brands still relied heavily on guesswork.
That observation led to the creation of CloutEye.
What Is CloutEye?
CloutEye is a social intelligence platform designed to help creators, businesses, and brands understand online trends and audience behavior before they become mainstream.
The platform analyzes social media activity to identify:
- Emerging trends
- High-performing hashtags
- Effective keywords
- Competitor strategies
- Optimal posting patterns
- Engagement behavior
- High-performing caption structures
- Niche-specific content opportunities
By providing this data, CloutEye aims to reduce the time and money creators spend experimenting with content strategies.
Core Features of CloutEye
| Feature | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Trend Analysis | Detect emerging trends early |
| Competitor Tracking | Monitor competitor performance |
| Hashtag Intelligence | Identify high-performing hashtags |
| Engagement Analytics | Understand audience behavior |
| Content Optimization | Improve post performance |
| Keyword Analysis | Discover valuable search trends |
Targeting Africa’s Fast-Growing Creator Economy
For Oluwatoni, the opportunity extends far beyond social media analytics.
He believes Africa’s creator economy remains significantly underserved compared to Western markets, where social intelligence companies have already built billion-dollar businesses.
While many global platforms offer analytics tools, few are designed specifically around African creators, brands, audiences, and market behaviors.
That gap represents CloutEye’s biggest opportunity.
Currently operating under a closed-access model, the company is refining its platform alongside creators and businesses while also pursuing a $70,000 pre-seed funding round.
Building Technology Without Being Consumed by It
Despite working in technology, Oluwatoni says he intentionally limits his digital consumption.
One practice he has adopted is avoiding his phone immediately after waking up, allowing himself time to mentally prepare before engaging with emails, notifications, and social media.
He continues to rely heavily on digital tools for learning and research, using:
- Google News
- Industry newsletters
- Automated research tools
- YouTube educational content
Interestingly, YouTube remains one of the platforms that has influenced his professional growth the most, serving as a resource for learning technologies, tracking industry trends, and occasionally enjoying gaming content.
Why African Founders Must Think Beyond Geography
Looking back at his journey, Oluwatoni believes one of the most important lessons he has learned is that geography should not limit ambition.
Rather than focusing exclusively on billion-dollar valuations or startup hype, he argues that founders should prioritize solving real problems.
According to him, value creation should come before valuation.
As Africa’s startup ecosystem continues to mature, he believes the continent’s biggest opportunity lies in helping founders realize that world-class companies can be built not only for Africa, but directly from Africa itself.
After surviving two startup shutdowns and rebuilding from scratch twice, Adebanji Oluwatoni’s journey serves as a reminder that resilience, adaptability, and a commitment to solving real problems may ultimately matter more than any valuation figure.
