Headline

Meet 42-year-old Richest US-based Nigerian Who Owns $3bn Rech Company

Published

2 years ago

February 1, 2024

Forbes has named a 42-year-old man, Tope Awotona, as the richest immigrant and Nigerian-American residing in the United States.

Awotona is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Calendly, a scheduling software company, worth $3 billion.

He was born in Lagos but migrated to the US in his teenage years, and previously worked as a salesman for tech firms like EMC (now Dell EMC).

Forbes disclosed that Awotona started Calendly in response to his frustration with the time-consuming back-and-forth emails needed for meeting scheduling.

Having self-funded Calendly for an extended period, Tope Awotona secured a substantial $350 million investment in 2021, propelling the company’s valuation to $3 billion.

Before the creation of Calendly, Awotona ventured into other businesses, such as a projector-selling venture and a garden tools enterprise, both of which did not succeed. The majority of his wealth, however, comes from the software he created.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Georgia, Awotona resides in Atlanta, Georgia, with his family.

Calendly, the software company he founded, specialises in a business communication platform designed for teams to efficiently schedule, prepare, and follow up on external meetings.

Awotona started Calendly, after investing all his life savings of $200,000 into it and later quitting his job selling software for EMC.

As part of the success of his initiatives, the company has 10 million users and counts Lyft, Ancestry.com, Indiana University and La-Z-Boy among its customers.

The American business magazine said Awotona’s revenue last year passed $100 million, double what it booked the previous year.

It further said that the company, which was founded in Atlanta but no longer has any physical offices, has been profitable since 2016.

Last year it raised $350 million in funding from OpenView Venture Partners and Iconiq Capital at a price that values the business at $3 billion.

That means Awotona’s majority stake is worth at least $1.4 billion, after the 10% discount that Forbes applies to shares of all private companies.

Awotona is one of just two Black tech billionaires in the United States, along with David Steward, the 70-year-old founder of Missouri-based IT provider World Wide Technology.

Attesting to his success, David Cummings, founder of Atlanta Ventures, which led a $550,000 seed investment in Calendly seven years ago, said, “Tope could be the most successful African-American tech entrepreneur of his generation.”

Headline

12 Die, 30 Missing In Peru Landslide

Published

22 hours ago

December 1, 2025

Editor

At least 12 people, including three children, died in a landslide at a river port in central Peru on Monday, and 30 were reported missing, officials said.

The landslide submerged a boat with about 50 passengers on board, and another with none, as they were docked at the port of Iparia in the Amazon jungle region of Ucayali, according to a police report cited by the Andina news agency.

Six people were injured, it added, and a search and rescue operation was underway at the start of the Peruvian rainy season.

Without giving a toll, Peru’s COEN national emergency operations centre said on X that tragedy struck at dawn due to “erosion” of the bank of the Ucayali river.

It said the navy has been called in to help.

AFP

Headline

Nigeria Grants Asylum To Guinea-Bissau Opposition Candidate

Published

22 hours ago

December 1, 2025

Editor

The Nigerian embassy in Guinea-Bissau has granted asylum to Fernando Dias da Costa, the country’s opposition presidential candidate, following alleged threats to his life after last week’s military coup, The Cable Reports.

The coup was announced by military officers on Wednesday, just days after Guinea-Bissau’s presidential election in which both incumbent President Umaro Embaló and his main challenger, da Costa, claimed victory before official results were released.

Nigeria condemned the takeover and urged an immediate return to constitutional order.

In a letter to the President of the Economic Community of West African States Commission, Omar Touray, dated November 30, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Yusuf Tuggar, said President Bola Tinubu had approved asylum and protection for da Costa inside the Nigerian embassy in Bissau.

Tuggar wrote that the decision was made “in response to threats made against da Costa’s life.”

“In this regard, it would be appreciated if you would kindly mandate the ECOWAS Stabilisation Support Mission in Guinea-Bissau to provide him protection and security while in the premises of the Nigerian embassy,” the letter stated.

The foreign affairs minister’s Special Assistant on Media and Communications Strategy, Alkasim Abdulkadir, confirmed the letter’s authenticity to The Cable on Monday.

He said, “The decision of the Federal Government of Nigeria to grant asylum and provide protection to Fernando Dia Da Costa falls squarely within Nigeria’s sovereign responsibility and longstanding commitment to regional peace, stability, and democratic governance.”

He added that Nigeria acted “in the broader interest of de-escalation,” saying the government had exercised its discretion “to prevent further deterioration of tensions and to promote social cohesion in Guinea-Bissau and the wider West African sub-region.”

According to Abdulkadir, the intervention aligns with ECOWAS principles and reflects Nigeria’s role as a stabilising force in West Africa.

Following the coup, ECOWAS held an emergency virtual summit of heads of state and subsequently suspended Guinea-Bissau from the regional bloc until constitutional order is restored.

Headline

Trump To Attend FIFA World Cup Finals Draw On Friday

Published

23 hours ago

December 1, 2025

Editor

The White House on Monday confirmed US President Donald Trump would attend the draw for the FIFA World Cup finals in Washington later this week.

The United States will co-host the 2026 tournament alongside Canada and Mexico.

“On Friday, President Trump will attend the FIFA World Cup final draw at the Kennedy Centre,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

Trump has made the World Cup a centrepiece event of both his second presidency and the 250th anniversary of US independence next year.

But the giant sporting extravaganza has not escaped the political turmoil caused by Trump’s hardline stance on a host of issues.

Trump, a Republican, has raised the possibility of moving games from some US host cities amid a crackdown on what he says is crime and illegal migration in some Democratic-run areas.

AFP