Why and How We’ve Stayed Self-Funded

As we prepared for our masterclass session at Africa Tech Summit Nairobi earlier this year, ES suggested we centre it on Cardtonic’s pathway to profitability. It was the perfect idea. After all, we are a self-funded company with more than 120 employees, and if anyone is qualified to tell this story, it’s us.

We could have chosen to speak about user growth, product expansion, or scaling into new markets. But the truth is, none of those journeys make sense without the foundation we’ve built through self-funding. It was an intentional decision from the onset that shaped who we are today.

Back in 2018, our founders— Kay and Usman, took out ₦5 million in savings, and made a decision to build a business that would sustain itself. No pitch deck. No investor calls. Just two founders betting on revenue as their fuel and trusting that discipline would take them further than capital ever could.

The Discipline of Profitability

That early decision set the tone for everything. Every new idea, every line of code, every expense had to answer one question: how does this bring in money?

It made us disciplined. Instead of pouring millions into campaigns for ‘show’, we tied every marketing spend directly to results. Instead of bloating our team, we stayed lean. At some point, Kay was directly involved in marketing. Scaling was steady, sometimes slow, but always tied to cash flow.

Then came 2022. Nigerian banks slashed card limits to just $20 for international transactions. Almost overnight, more businesses and individuals began to lean on gift cards as their reliable alternative for international transactions. What looked like a setback for most people became a turning point for us. By grounding our growth in real cash flow and customer trust, we were positioned to serve the market the moment the banks pulled back. That single shift became one of the biggest accelerators of our growth.

By 2024, that same philosophy birthed our Virtual Dollar Card which is now responsible for up to 45% of our revenue. It was the continuation of the same principle we started with in 2018— solve real problems with a sustainable and profitable business model.

Why We Chose This Path

So, why self-funding? Because it works. Bootstrapping wasn’t about fear of rejection; it was about intentionality. We wanted a business where revenue paid for growth, where profitability was baked into our DNA.

That choice gave us control. Control to say no to vanity projects. Control to build lean teams that scale responsibly. Control to protect the culture that now powers over 120 employees and serves more than 1.5 million users.

Sometimes, we laugh about what raising money might have looked like. Maybe faster expansion. Maybe louder campaigns. But what we’ve built instead is resilience. We didn’t want to exist because of external funding. We wanted to exist regardless of it.

Seven years in, we can say this confidently: self-funding has been our superpower. It has kept us grounded, profitable, and in charge of our own story.

When we took that stage in Nairobi, we weren’t there to say self-funding is the only way. We were there to show that it can be the way — if done with intentionality, discipline, and patience.

So, are we looking to raise? At the moment, no. In the future, maybe — or maybe not. The truth is, we haven’t seen a need. Until that day comes, we’ll keep doing what has worked from the very beginning: staying self-funded, disciplined, and in full control of our story.