Kemi Bolatito was born and raised in Mushin, Lagos State, in a family that had to work hard to make ends meet. Growing up, she watched her parents struggle to provide for the family, an experience that shaped her outlook on life and pushed her towards entrepreneurship from an early age.
Rather than follow the traditional 9 to 5 career path, Bolatito became interested in finding ways to make money for herself. She started selling items while still in school, sometimes turning ₦100 into ₦200. That early experience would eventually become the foundation for her journey into business and, years later, the creation of Rolla Pay, a fintech company focused on cross border payments.
Her journey from the streets of Mushin to becoming a startup founder in Canada was not straightforward. It was shaped by family values, survival, motherhood, migration, business setbacks and a determination to solve problems she encountered herself.
Bolatito says her childhood home placed a strong emphasis on integrity and personal values. Her father, who owned the family home, was deeply concerned about his name and reputation. He constantly reminded his children that no matter how difficult life became, they should never do anything that would bring shame to the family.
There were times when there was no food to take to school. Her mother would simply encourage her to go to school and return home during the lunch break to eat before going back to class. Their community primary school was only about five minutes away, making it possible for her to return home during the break.
Her father was also actively involved in Nigeria’s struggle for democracy and grassroots politics. During the military era, he was arrested several times, forcing the family to visit him in jail.
When democracy returned in 1999, however, Bolatito’s father was among those who were largely forgotten despite his contributions to the political struggle. He remained content with his life and did not believe politics should be pursued for personal enrichment. His experience influenced the family’s decision to stay away from politics.
For Bolatito, entrepreneurship began long before she became a founder.
She recalls selling items from primary school through secondary school. The motivation was largely survival and the desire to build a better future than the one she had seen her parents experience. Beyond providing for herself, she also wanted to create generational wealth and leave something meaningful for her children.
While studying Mass Communication at Olabisi Onabanjo University, she sold candies and cookies to her classmates. She could leave home in the morning without money, sell her products during the day and return with enough to buy food.
Despite running a small business while studying, she maintained good grades. That experience encouraged her to continue pursuing entrepreneurship.
After graduation, she got married and later spent about a year working in the media during her National Youth Service Corps period. When the company eventually left Nigeria, she decided that a conventional career was not the path she wanted to follow, especially as she already had children. She then moved into business full time.
The decision to relocate abroad had been part of her plans even before marriage. Her husband also came from a background where survival and hard work were familiar experiences. Together, they believed that education and their decision to build a life outside Nigeria could give the next generation better opportunities.
They were particularly interested in securing permanent residency rather than simply travelling abroad.
During the process, Bolatito encountered a setback when an agent who claimed to help people relocate to Canada scammed her. Fortunately, she did not lose a large amount of money, although her family’s passports were taken. The agent was eventually arrested, allowing them to recover the documents.
After that experience, the couple became more deliberate about the process. They saved money, studied the requirements and worked towards meeting the conditions for permanent residency.
In 2015, Bolatito, her husband and their three children left Nigeria for Canada after being selected for permanent residence. They made the move shortly after participating in Nigeria’s general elections.
The adjustment was difficult, particularly because of the weather. Coming from Lagos, with its humid climate, the extreme Canadian winter came as a shock. Bolatito recalls stepping out of the airport only to quickly return inside because the clothes she had worn were not suitable for the cold.
The family eventually settled in one of Canada’s coldest cities, where temperatures can fall as low as minus 50 degrees Celsius.
Despite the harsh weather and the new environment, Bolatito quickly began looking for business opportunities. She noticed that many people around her were focused mainly on paid employment, but she remained committed to entrepreneurship.
She arrived late in 2015 and was already doing business by February 2016. By July, she had launched a full scale business.
For her, successful entrepreneurship is largely about understanding people and identifying problems that need solutions.
Her next major step into technology came from her experience working as an immigration consultant.
Before becoming a licensed immigration consultant, Bolatito had regularly helped family and friends navigate the immigration process because of her personal experience and knowledge. After completing another degree in 2020 and running a grocery store occupying about 10,000 square feet, she began looking for a way to address a recurring problem she had seen among her clients.
The problem was payments.
Clients frequently asked her to make payments on their behalf because they did not have access to Canadian dollars. These requests included payments for airport transportation, World Education Services evaluations, school fees and other expenses.
Bolatito realised that these services went beyond the responsibilities of an immigration consultant. Handling such payments could also create regulatory complications because they were not formally part of her job.
She therefore began thinking about a platform that could handle student intake and payments before and after people arrived in Canada. That idea introduced her to technology and eventually led her into the startup world.
Interestingly, Bolatito had no computer science background and had never written a line of code. What she lacked in technical experience, however, she made up for with curiosity and a willingness to learn.
She eventually joined Edmonton Unlimited, an accelerator in Edmonton that trains startups and supports founders as they develop their businesses.
At the time, she did not even have a name for the company. After one of the accelerator sessions, she searched online and found that the name Scooly was available. She then hired freelancers through Fiverr to help develop a prototype.
The idea was to create a platform similar in structure to Uber, but instead of drivers and riders, the platform would connect users with different professionals, including lawyers and immigration consultants.
The platform was designed at a time when the international student market was facing significant challenges. The presence of unauthorised immigration practitioners had created problems, while major destinations such as Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States were reducing the number of international students they admitted.
Bolatito wanted to create a platform where users could find licensed professionals and also prepare financially before travelling. The concept included a wallet that users could fund before leaving their home countries, as well as virtual cards that could be used to make payments and move money.
That remained the company’s direction until 2025, when customer demands began revealing a broader opportunity.
Some users began asking whether the platform could help them move workers from Canada to the United States and handle other cross border business needs. Bolatito realised that the company needed to evolve around what customers actually wanted.
That shift eventually led to Rolla Pay.
The company redesigned its payment infrastructure to focus on startups and businesses, helping them operate and scale across international markets. Rolla Pay began in February 2026 and went live in April 2026.
Bolatito says she remains particularly proud of the young Nigerian developers and other talented people who worked with her to turn the idea into a functioning product.
Within its first few months of operation, Rolla Pay had processed more than $300,000 and was serving over 90 customers. The company, which initially operated as a business to customer platform, is now shifting its attention towards business to business services.
The company is bootstrapped. Bolatito sold her grocery business and invested the proceeds into Scooly. By the time she began transitioning towards Rolla Pay, she had essentially started over financially.
Money from her immigration consulting business was also invested into the fintech. She later secured grants in Canada after winning pitch competitions and received additional funding in the United States.
So far, she says the company has secured about $80,000 in non dilutive funding.
Although she would like to raise more capital, Bolatito says she has encountered some resistance from potential investors because she does not fit the traditional profile of a fintech founder.
She does not come from a banking background and is not a software developer. She has also received blunt feedback suggesting that she should have a white co founder.
For Bolatito, that is not a reason to change the kind of team she wants to build. She believes a co founder should come into the business because of the value they bring, not because of the need to present a particular image.
Her determination has remained one of the driving forces behind the company.
She says she does not like being told no and refuses to allow rejection to stop her from pursuing an idea she believes in. Her focus is on proving that the company can build and sell a product that solves a genuine problem.
Rolla Pay did not have the luxury of spending a long period testing in a sandbox before going live. The company launched and continued improving the product as it operated. When problems emerged, the team fixed them and kept building.
Bolatito says that experience has reinforced her belief that determination can make it possible to achieve goals that initially appear difficult.
In terms of revenue, she says the company has reached $300,000 in annual recurring revenue, while Rolla Pay has generated about $3,000 in transaction fees since April.
Today, Rolla Pay operates as a money service business and is registered with Canada’s Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre, known as FINTRAC. The platform is available to startups and small businesses across more than 190 countries.
For Bolatito, one of the biggest achievements has not simply been launching the company, but seeing real customers use the product.
Watching transactions go through within seconds without problems, receiving customer feedback and hearing users request new features have all been significant milestones for her.
She believes one of the major problems facing diaspora businesses is the difficulty of operating fully as businesses. In some cases, business transactions still have to pass through personal bank accounts before they can be completed.
Rolla Pay is being built to address that gap by giving diaspora businesses better ways to manage their international financial activities.
The company already has a working product and a clear understanding of the market, but funding remains one of its biggest challenges. Bolatito says the team has held early discussions with investors and is looking for backers who believe in Rolla Pay’s potential.
Her ambition for the company is substantial.
Bolatito wants Rolla Pay to eventually become a unicorn, but her immediate focus is on reaching at least 100,000 businesses operating across borders.
Beyond the valuation, her bigger goal is to make Rolla Pay the go to global operating system for small businesses across Africa, helping them operate more easily across borders and participate more fully in the global economy.
