We back great students to ship solutions that matter.
Our story
Over the next 25 years, Nigeria's population will grow by more than half. The demands on food, health, and education will require a generation of people who grew up in the systems they're trying to fix but hold a higher standard.
We believe universities are the forming ground for these leaders — but economic realities have narrowed what's possible. Axiom is an intervention to find excellent students and to work with them to build original models for the future.
In our first year, we're partnering with a small cohort of postgraduate students in agriculture, health, and energy to take their research into working, scalable systems.
2026 Fellowship
Our first cohort is intentionally small: postgraduate students in agriculture, health, and energy who are building from deep domain research toward working, scalable systems. Each fellow receives funding, technical and product partnership, and mentorship from operators, researchers, and builders who have done it before.
What we value
Utility
What does this change in the world? We back work that shifts something real — in a system, in a community, in the way a problem gets solved.
Rigour
Critical thinking and real engagement. We expect arguments that hold up and curiosity that goes where the problem actually lives.
Impact
How many people does it reach? The problems we care about are large. The work we fund should be too.
Character
Who is this person? We select for intellectual honesty, personal discipline, and the willingness to hold themselves to a standard most people don't bother with.
Community
How does this person scale? The best fellows don't just do good work — they raise the bar for everyone around them. We back people who will bring others with them, and we surround them with mentors who have done the same.
Directors
Ridwan is the CEO of LemFi, an international payments company. He's spent the last decade building and scaling systems and organizations that serve over a million users globally.
Ope co-founded Paystack and led the design team for almost a decade. He cares about excellence in craft, building exceptional teams, and creative infrastructure in Nigeria.
For general inquiries, partnerships, or press, reach us by email.