Get To Know Taiwo Akinropo, Founder And CEO At Heyfood And MENA40 Judge

How and why was Heyfood founded?

Heyfood was founded in 2022. It started because we noticed that a lot of young professionals in Nigeria needed a better way to order food without leaving their homes or workplaces. At the time, remote work was growing, more young people were working in banks and offices, and there was a clear gap in the market.

The existing players were mostly focused on a very narrow version of food delivery – just pizza, chicken, and a few items from one or two big brands. But that does not reflect how people actually eat in Africa. We eat from big brands, we eat pizza, but we also eat local food and many different types of dishes from different kinds of restaurants.

So we built Heyfood to support that full range. We had to build technology that could work for all sizes of food businesses, from small local vendors to medium-sized restaurants and large brands. That became one of the things that gave us an edge: we were not just building for the biggest restaurants, we were building for how people actually eat.

What gap is Heyfood filling in the market?

Before Heyfood, many restaurant businesses had to manually look for couriers whenever they wanted to handle food delivery. On the customer side, people often had to pick up the phone, call a restaurant, place an order manually, confirm availability, arrange delivery, and then sort out payment. That process could easily take 30 minutes to one hour of back and forth.

What we built is a single marketplace through a mobile app. We aggregate restaurants for customers, connect couriers directly to restaurants, take the order, process the payment, and match each order with the right courier through our dispatch and matching systems.

So a process that used to take 30 to 60 minutes can now take one or two minutes for the customer, with just a few buttons. That is the gap we came in to solve: making food ordering and delivery much easier for both restaurants and customers.

Now, we are also taking the same system and applying it beyond food, into areas like groceries, health, pharmaceuticals, and other local commerce categories.

What are the main challenges you face in your industry?

One of the main challenges in our industry is building trust and reliability across the delivery process, especially on the rider side. When we first came into the market, we had to build strong systems to make sure riders behaved professionally, customers felt safe, and restaurants could trust the process.

One of the things we did from day one was remove pay-on-delivery. We were one of the first in our market to do this. Instead, we built a wallet system connected to bank accounts, which made payments seamless and reduced the risk of rider fraud almost immediately.

We also built sophisticated rider tracking and internal operations tools. This allowed us to avoid many of the typical issues that can happen when a stranger is delivering food to another stranger. With proper tracking, proper payment systems, and strong operational visibility, we were able to solve a lot of these problems with technology.

We could do this because we were very technical from the beginning. Both my co-founder and I had the engineering background to build these systems ourselves, which gave us an edge. A lot of the market is now trying to move in this direction too, but our advantage came from building these systems deeply into the product and operations from day one.
 

What are the pros and cons of being based outside of the main Northern hemisphere tech hubs?

One of the biggest advantages is that we are building in a very fast-growing market. Africa has a large and young population, and over the next decade, there will be millions more young people coming online, earning income, and adopting digital products. That creates a huge opportunity.

Because of that, companies like ours have the chance to become part of people’s daily lives in the same way that companies like Google became part of daily life in North America. We are building in markets where many core consumer habits are still being formed, so the opportunity is very large.

Another advantage is the ability to leapfrog. We can look at what has worked in more mature markets, learn from what did not work, and then build the right version for our own market. But we cannot just copy and paste. We have to understand the local context and put our own twist on it.

The challenge is that the same opportunity also comes with the need to educate the market. When you are leapfrogging, you are often introducing behaviours, systems, or products that people are not fully used to yet. So you have to balance innovation with education. That is one of the main differences: you get a huge opportunity, but you also have to do more work to bring the market along with you.

What was it like trying to secure funding from Nigeria, and how did you begin working with Y Combinator?

Fundraising today is very different from what it used to be. Investors are everywhere now, and one of the advantages of the digital world is that you can speak to both local and international investors from anywhere. You can jump on calls, have conversations, and create opportunities for yourself as long as you have internet access and something meaningful to show.

For us, we were fortunate to speak with both local investors and foreign investors. We reached out, took calls, got introductions, and kept having conversations. The good thing is that, in today’s world, you can still be evaluated based on merit. The 21st century makes it possible for a kid from anywhere to build something, put it online, and create opportunities that would have been much harder to access before.

I would not say it was easy, but I also would not frame it as impossible. Every entrepreneur faces challenges depending on where they are building from. The job is to find solutions. In our case, a big part of it was finding the right introductions, speaking to the right people, and showing the progress we were making.

Our path to Y Combinator was interesting. We were encouraged to apply by people who saw what we were building and thought we should give it a shot. So we applied, got in, and had the chance to go through the YC accelerator program.

YC was one of the best experiences for us. They have very unconventional startup advice, but a lot of it is extremely practical and useful. If any founder gets the chance to apply, I think they should. Applying costs nothing. You will get a lot of rejections as a founder, but you only need a few yeses.
 

What excites you most about the future of tech in the MENA region?

For me, what is most exciting about emerging markets is the scale of the opportunity. In fast-growing regions like MENA and Africa, many markets have not yet been completely dominated by the kind of giant technology companies you see in places like China or the United States. That creates room for startups to build products that can become part of people’s daily lives.

For companies like ours, that means the opportunity is not limited to food alone. We can build products that cut across different parts of people’s digital lives, from food to groceries, payments, health, commerce, and other everyday services. That is one of the most exciting things: the chance to build something that becomes a daily product for millions of people.

Leapfrogging is also a big part of it. I think parts of Africa and MENA today are similar to where China was in the 2000s. Millions of people are coming online, consumer behaviour is changing quickly, and there is still a lot of infrastructure to be built.

So for builders and entrepreneurs, it is a very exciting time. These markets have young populations, fast-growing economies, and real problems that technology can solve. The opportunity is not just to build large companies, but to build products that genuinely impact people’s lives.
 

You’re judging the MENA40. What are you hoping to see in entries this year?

I am hoping to see innovative startups that are taking advantage of the major technological shifts happening right now, especially in AI and machine learning. I would love to see very strong AI startups, as well as companies working in robotics, biotech, and other ambitious areas.

AI is especially exciting because many of the most important technology companies in the world were enabled by major platform shifts. Microsoft and Apple were enabled by the personal computer revolution. Amazon, Google, and Meta were enabled by the internet revolution. Uber, ByteDance, and Instagram were enabled by the mobile revolution. I think AI has the potential to be as important as all of those revolutions.

For founders in regions like MENA, this is a very big opportunity. If you have always wanted to build global products, not just local products for your region, AI gives you a chance to do that. Technology is mostly permissionless, and it allows people to build from anywhere and scale across borders.

I am also hoping to see founders thinking beyond only basic or functional products. Of course, solving daily needs is important, but the region can also produce companies building transformative technology. We can build startups from MENA and Africa that impact the region and also scale to the rest of the world.

So I am excited to see companies building with that level of ambition: AI, robotics, biotech, and other products that can transform people’s lives and show what is possible from this part of the world.

Any advice for tech companies based in the MENA region hoping to rank well in the 2026 competition?

My advice would be to think big. Sometimes, when you are building from an emerging market or building for a local market, there is this idea that you should only focus on your immediate ecosystem and not try to build globally. I do not think that is always true.

Yes, there are problems where solving them deeply in your region can create a very strong company. But there are also many opportunities to build products that work both locally and globally. WhatsApp is a good example. It is used by people all over the world, and a product like that could just as easily come from our region.

So I would tell founders to build exciting things and not limit themselves too early. Think big, talk to customers, and keep building. When you spend enough time with customers, you learn very powerful things that can improve your product and make the company stronger.

For companies applying to MENA40, I would say: take the chance on yourself and your company. Show ambition, show what you have built, show the problem you are solving, and make it clear why your company can matter beyond just today.