Cardtonic Growth Lead Tomi Oduyemi Presents Self-Funding Fintech Playbook at Web Summit Vancouver 2026

Lagos, Nigeria, June 5th, 2026, FinanceWire

Cardtonic, a leading African fintech super-app with over 1.8 million active users, announced the participation of its Growth Lead, Tomi Oduyemi, in a masterclass at Web Summit Vancouver 2026. Her presentation, “How to Build a Fintech That Funds Itself,” laid out the operational playbook behind Cardtonic’s growth from a bootstrapped gift card startup to a diversified fintech platform, all without raising a single dollar of institutional capital until 2026.

A Real Problem, Not a Pitch Deck

Cardtonic’s story began in 2018 with a straightforward infrastructure gap: Africans were locked out of the global digital economy, unable to redeem gift cards locally or make cross-border payments without hitting hard restrictions. Founders Usman and Kay put in 5 million Naira of personal savings, with no external funding, and built around one defining question: “How does this bring in money?”

As Oduyemi put it during the session, the opportunity was never about a revolutionary idea. It was about spotting real inefficiencies that nobody profitable had bothered to fix. That focus became the DNA of everything Cardtonic has built since.

Pivoting With Purpose

Cardtonic was never just a gift card company. From the start, the team saw themselves as a payments company, and that framing mattered when the market shifted.

Over the years, the platform grew from gift card trading into crypto off-ramp services, then pivoted following regulatory changes, before expanding into virtual dollar cards, NFC tap-to-pay cards, eSIMs, bill payments, and a gadget store. None of it was in the original plan.

“Your first idea is a draft, not the final product,” Oduyemi said. “Pivoting is what happens when you’re paying attention to the market, the users, and the gaps.”

Each new product followed the same logic: find the wall users keep hitting, and build the door. The virtual dollar card, launched in 2024 in response to Nigerian banks cutting international card spending limits, now delivers around 50% of Cardtonic’s total revenue.

Financial Discipline in Early Operations

Cardtonic’s earliest product, its gift card trading feature, ran on thin margins tied to fluctuating exchange rate spreads. That left little room for vanity spending, and it forced a discipline that has stayed with the company ever since.

With no war chest to fall back on, every hiring decision had to be justified. Every campaign had to earn its cost back. Automation was not a trend to follow but a cost-cutting necessity. “Spend like every dollar has to come back,” Oduyemi told the audience.

That constraint, she argued, is often what separates companies that survive from those that burn through funding and stall.

Revenue as the Real Compass

“Revenue is information,” Oduyemi said. It tells you what customers actually value, whether your model works, and what growth the business has genuinely earned. For Cardtonic, that information consistently showed the business did not need outside capital yet, so it stayed self-funded.

That changed in 2026 when Cardtonic raised $2.1 million, not out of survival, but to build out PIL, its B2B card spend management platform designed for high-volume business operations. PIL required compliance infrastructure, liquidity support, and global-scale systems that cost real money to do properly.

The raise came entirely from angel investors who had watched the company’s journey up close. “It felt less like a business pitch and more like inviting people into a story they had already watched unfold,” Oduyemi said.

Her message to founders: only raise when it makes strategic sense, not because the business is struggling. “We built something that exists because of what we built, not in spite of what we didn’t raise.”

About Cardtonic

Cardtonic is a fast-growing fintech super-app enabling payments beyond borders through alternative channels such as virtual dollar cards and digital assets. The platform serves more than 1.5 million users, providing frictionless access to global payments, secure gift card exchange, international bills, and digital connectivity via eSIMs.

With a strong culture of discipline, speed, and customer trust, Cardtonic gives Africans the freedom to transact globally without relying solely on traditional banking rails. For more information, users can visit www.cardtonic.com.

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