Kelvin Umechukwu

Kelvin Umechukwu earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University before moving into Nigeria's technology ecosystem. He served as Head of Business Development at TechQuest STEM Academy, where he helped train over 20,000 young people in science and technology skills, and later worked as a Program Manager at Co-Creation Hub (CcHUB), one of Nigeria's earliest and most influential innovation hubs, managing startup portfolios and accelerator programmes.

Running a small business himself in Lagos, Umechukwu experienced firsthand how overwhelming it was for African entrepreneurs to manage sales, inventory and customer relationships without technical skills or affordable tools. In 2021, he co-founded Bumpa with Adetunji Opayele to solve exactly that problem, building a mobile-first platform letting small business owners create an online store, track inventory, process payments and manage customers entirely from a smartphone, with no coding required.

Bumpa has since onboarded over 50,000 merchants, operating on a freemium model with revenue from premium features and a small commission on payments processed through the platform. Backed by investors including Google's Black Founders Fund, Plug and Play, Base10 Partners and Fast Forward Venture Studio, the company has been described as building the 'Shopify of Africa' — tailored specifically to African commerce realities rather than adapting a global template.