A not-so-brief account

Triple Trouble: The Curious Case Of The Ouster And The Oddities At Lidya

By  |  October 1, 2021

A couple of months ago, one founder’s curious statement raised eyebrows in the African startup/venture capital scene, and the words go something like this;

“I didn’t leave Lidya to pursue other projects. The existing investors took control of the company in an unjust manner. Therefore, I’m currently litigating them in the U.S.”

Those words make up Ercin Eksin’s unvarnished statement, included as an update to a TechCrunch article dated July 7, 2021, announcing Lidya’s USD 8.3 Mn pre-Series B raise while also casually mentioning that Eksin had “left Lidya to pursue other projects.” Eksin had rebutted.

When the above comment from Eksin (the Belgian national who had co-led the Nigeria-born SME financing startup known as Lidya as Co-Founder/Co-CEO since 2016) became public in July this year, it raised a lot of questions and virtually no concrete answers, naturally.

So, what really played out at Lidya? What sort of dispute culminated in Eksin leaving the startup under circumstan...

Most Read


Nigeria’s Crypto Traders Take Business Underground Amid War On Binance

Nigeria’s heightened crackdown on cryptocurrency companies over the naira’s slide is driving the


Kenya Is Struggling To Find Winners After Startup Funding Boom

Kenya, the acclaimed Silicon Savannah, is reeling from turbulence in its tech landscape.


The New Playbook Behind Private Equity’s Quiet Boom In Africa

Private equity (PE) investment in Africa has seen a remarkable upswing in recent