Breet survived its first 1,000 days without venture capital by launching during Nigeria’s 2021 banking restrictions, which forced the crypto company to rely on early revenue and personal savings rather than outside funding.
Building Under a Banking Ban
When Breet began operating in February 2021, Nigerian banks had just been instructed to stop facilitating cryptocurrency transactions. On February 5, the Central Bank of Nigeria directed financial institutions to identify accounts connected to crypto exchanges, close them, and stop processing related payments. The directive did not prohibit individuals from owning cryptocurrency, but it made the relationship between crypto businesses and the formal banking system significantly more difficult.
Breet was entering the market with a product built around that relationship. Its service intended to convert cryptocurrency into fiat currency and settle the proceeds into customers’ bank accounts. The timing created an immediate operational problem. It also influenced how the founders understood the opportunity.
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“Everyone read that ban as the worst possible timing,” co-founder Kayode Faturoti told Tech In Africa. “We read it as the whole reason Breet needed to exist.” Faturoti said the banking restrictions made moving and settling funds more difficult, while strengthening the founders’ belief that cryptocurrency holders needed a simpler way to convert digital assets into naira. That interpretation would shape how the company financed and designed its first roughly 1,000 days.
Funding the Float from Personal Savings
The company did not begin with an angel investment, institutional check, or venture-capital round. Its initial capital came from the founders’ personal savings, and the founders did not pay themselves during the company’s earliest years. About three years passed before they began receiving compensation, according to co-founder Usman Balogun, with available funds directed instead toward product development and operations.
Although the same entrepreneurs founded Cardtonic, a gift-card trading company, it did not finance Breet. The businesses maintained separate teams, revenue, and financial responsibilities. Breet had to support its own operations rather than draw money from Cardtonic’s cash flow. At launch, the platform supported Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin. All three use unspent transaction output, or UTXO, models. Beginning with technically related blockchain systems allowed the company to test its conversion and settlement process before adding support for more complex networks.
Instead of launching with a broad collection of features, the company concentrated on determining whether automated conversion could work reliably and whether enough people would use it. This helped manage capital, as more blockchains, payment routes, and customer features would have created further engineering, security, and operational costs.
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A crypto off-ramp offering rapid bank settlement must maintain enough fiat currency to pay customers as their digital assets are converted, since a technically successful transaction has little value if the corresponding cash payout cannot be completed. Breet’s founders financed this settlement float from their personal savings, although the company did not disclose the size of its reserves. Its executives told Tech In Africa that they manage settlement risk by avoiding dependence on a single payment or banking channel, using several payment partners and banking routes so transactions can be redirected when one route becomes unavailable. That strategy became relevant again in May 2026, when disruptions affecting Nigeria’s central payment infrastructure caused delayed and failed transfers across several banks and fintech platforms.
The company spent relatively little on paid advertising during its earliest period, relying instead on search traffic, educational content, affiliate marketing, and referrals. During the expansion of the non-fungible-token market, it published an introductory NFT guide and distributed it through Twitter. Balogun says running a business on narrow exchange-rate margins taught the founders to connect spending directly to measurable commercial results.
Focusing on Revenue Over Equity
Breet’s founders did not pitch venture-capital firms during 2021 or 2022. According to Balogun, operating revenue became the company’s main source of financing approximately 15 months after launch. From that point, he says the business was funding itself. Tech In Africa could not independently verify Breet’s financial figures; the company is privately held and does not publish accounts.
The founders described staying out of venture fundraising as a deliberate preference for building through product revenue rather than selling equity to finance growth. That decision also needs to be understood in the context of the period. Nigeria’s banking restrictions created uncertainty for companies whose products depended on converting cryptocurrency into naira. At the same time, the collapse of several international crypto businesses in 2022 caused investors and regulators to apply greater scrutiny to the sector. Breet focused on distribution and product development instead of maintaining an active fundraising process.
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For the founders, the discipline of funding operations through actual customer transactions provides a different kind of stability than the promises of a venture deal. In a sector prone to boom-and-bust cycles, relying on consistent revenue means the company can continue working even when investors pull back or when regulatory environments shift unpredictably. This approach forces the business to solve real problems for users immediately rather than planning for an exit that may never happen.
A New Regulatory Setting
Breet’s first 1,000 days took place largely under the banking restrictions introduced in February 2021. Nigeria’s regulatory position began to change during that period. In May 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued rules covering digital-asset offerings, custody, exchanges, and virtual-asset service providers. In December 2023, shortly after the period examined in this article, the Central Bank issued guidelines allowing regulated financial institutions to operate accounts for virtual-asset service providers under specified conditions. The change replaced the earlier blanket restriction on banks facilitating cryptocurrency transactions with a framework based on regulated access.
Breet now operates in a different environment. It has applied for its SEC license and is awaiting approval. Capital access for a Nigerian crypto founder today is “very different, and better,” Faturoti argues, as clearer rules draw investment back into the sector. Fiat payouts currently settle only to Nigerian and Ghanaian accounts. Head of Operations Aishat Slyman says Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia are the next planned markets. Breet is also registered as a money services business with FINTRAC in Canada, where it operates as Wonesupport Inc. Francophone Africa is not in the near-term plan because of the added cost of operating in a second language, according to COO Mbene Vivian.
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