He Raised Over $20 Million To Build An AI-Powered Smart Wallet Service That Optimizes Consumer Rewards And Benefits On Purchase

For Tikue Anazodo, founder and CEO of Kudos, his entrepreneurial journey began long before Silicon Valley—long before Google, Microsoft, Affirm, or Shopify. It started in Lagos, Nigeria, in an environment where entrepreneurship wasn’t a career choice. It was a necessity.

Unlike most founders, Tikue didn’t wake up one morning and decide to build a regulated fintech company that touches people’s money, credit, and daily spending habits.

That kind of ambition is usually forged over time through exposure, repetition, and a deep understanding of how real businesses operate at scale. Tikue appeared on the Dealmakers Podcast to discuss building, scaling, and raising funding for his company, Kudos.

Listen to the full podcast episode and review the transcript here.

Lagos, Columbia, Computer Science, and Learning to Build From Scratch

Tikue grew up in Lagos, attending boarding school and absorbing a reality that would later shape his thinking about business. He arrived in the US in 2009, where he studied computer science at Columbia University in New York City.

As Tikue reveals, he chose Columbia specifically because he was also writing a book that he later self-published. Tikue wanted to be in the publishing capital of the world in a school where he could also study computer science. This weird combination of aspirations led to Columbia.

The university exposed Tikue to innovation, ambition, and more. He had the opportunity to get into tech and started working with some of the world’s most prominent companies. What made the transition harder and more formative was that Tikue had never written a line of code before college.

Many of his peers had been programming for years, so Tikue had to catch up fast. That gap fueled an obsession with building, learning, and surrounding himself with people who were creating things.

Columbia became a gateway not just into tech, but into Silicon Valley thinking—through programs, exposure to startups, and relationships with companies operating at massive scale.

Growing Up Entrepreneurial by Default

As Tikue explains, in Nigeria, formal employment isn’t the default path. The vast majority of people create their own income through small businesses, trade, and hustle. “Over 80% of people around me were entrepreneurs,” he recalls. “Not because it was trendy, but because that’s how you survived.”

That exposure embedded a problem-solving mindset early on. People didn’t wait for systems to work; they built around them. When Tikue first encountered computers and the internet, it unlocked a powerful idea: software could scale entrepreneurship beyond geography.

Most of the software Tikue used in Nigeria was built in the US. The realization that he could someday build tools and upload them to the Internet so they could be used by people he would never meet stayed with him. He could help solve problems for people in different parts of the world.

Learning Scale Inside the World’s Best Tech Companies

Before starting Kudos, Tikue deliberately chose to work at some of the most sophisticated tech companies in the world, including Microsoft, Google, YouTube, and Affirm. Part of the motivation was about preparing himself to become an entrepreneur and cover every angle.

As an immigrant, working at large companies simplified the process of obtaining a visa and a green card sponsorship. But the deeper reason was strategic. Tikue wanted to understand how category-defining companies actually operate.

At Microsoft, Tikue learned what it meant to deploy consumer products used by tens of millions of people. He also developed an understanding of what it meant to deploy software at scale.

At Google, where Tikue helped launch Google Pay’s online product, he saw what true scale requires. Because Google has billions of users, it doesn’t just build software and launch it. Several internal processes, legal scrutiny, risk mitigation, and discipline need to be navigated.

The experience sharpened Tikue’s understanding of products in general, as he began to consider the legal implications of actual customers using them. It was also a great way to get quick, scalable feedback when a new software release has 10 million users.

Data signals and instant feedback loops enable engineers to quickly refine the product. That environment sharpened Tikue’s thinking about product, regulation, and user trust. “You don’t just ship at Google,” he says. “You earn the right to ship.”

Tikue values the exposure and interactions with highly intelligent professionals who would go on to build their own companies in Silicon Valley. He also learned about problems that, in his view, were worth solving.

Affirm added another layer: heavy financial regulation. Lending, compliance, legal review, and consumer protection weren’t theoretical; they were operational constraints that shaped every decision. Together, those experiences planted the seeds for Kudos.

The Insight: Wallets Were Built for Merchants, Not Consumers

Tikue and his future cofounder, Ahmad Ismail, had worked at the same companies for over 10 years. The duo was exploring different problems from various angles. Across Google Pay and Affirm, Tikue noticed a consistent pattern.

Most wallets and fintech products are optimized for merchants, driving conversions, increasing spend, and improving checkout performance. Very few products are truly optimized for the consumer.

“What if a wallet worked for you?” Tikue wondered. “What if it helped you earn and save more money without you having to think about it at all?” That question and the exposure to regulatory hurdles when building products of this nature became the foundation of Kudos.

Launching Kudos and Iterating Toward a Self-Driving Wallet

Tikue and Ahmad launched Kudos in 2021, raising early capital from Max Levchin (founder of PayPal and Affirm), QED Investors, and other backers. They shipped fast, launching an alpha product within two months.

The first version was a browser extension that helped users pick the best credit card at checkout. But that wasn’t the end vision. It was a wedge. From the start, the goal was to build what Tikue called a “self-driving wallet, ”a product that automatically handled money decisions on your behalf.

Iteration came quickly. Feedback shaped features. Usage patterns clarified what mattered. Over time, Kudos evolved into a platform designed around one core principle: “Don’t change how people spend. Just make every spend smarter.”

Three Revenue Engines, One Consumer-First Philosophy

Kudos today monetizes through three complementary models:

• Merchant Commissions (Kudos Boost): When users shop at over 15,000 partner stores like eBay or Expedia, Kudos earns a commission and passes 100% of it back to the consumer as additional cash back, similar to products like Rakuten or Honey at PayPal.
• Financial Product Recommendations: Kudos analyzes spending behavior and recommends credit cards that actually fit how users spend. Not generic offers, but contextual insights like, “You spent $7,000 on dining last year or $5,000 on rent last month. This card would have earned you $300 more.” As Tikue explains, many Kudos customers have high credit scores with high spending and are looking for products that work for them.
• Premium Subscriptions With Agentic Features: The newest and fastest-growing revenue stream. Kudos now offers “do-it-for-me” agentic features.

Kudos’ Agentic Features and How They Work

Tikue describes the recently-launched agentic feature in detail. Credit card users typically have offers and favorite shopping destinations, such as Amazon. However, they must go in and manually activate the offers, which are available in thousands each week.

Kudos automatically activates the card-linked offers that users forget to turn on and reminds them to avail themselves. As a result, users can save an average of about $750 a year from those types of offers. The next step is an agentic feature that helps users negotiate their bills.

Kudos deploys a voice agent to help. For instance, say, an Xfinity bill is very high. Instead of calling the company and spending hours on the phone, Kudos deploys an agent to make the call for the user and negotiate a lower bill, saving them about $250 per year.

The third revenue stream comes from people paying for agentic features that proactively unlock savings without effort. Early data shows users saving hundreds of dollars per year — without changing behavior.

The Inflection Point: When Growth Finally Clicked

Like most consumer founders, Tikue learned the hard way that launches don’t equal traction. For nearly two years, Kudos grew steadily but quietly until one feature changed everything. Kudos Boost rapidly grew its user base from 5,000 to 100,000.

Giving consumers 100% of the value unlocked a simple truth: people want easy, effortless ways to earn and save money. Later, premium features like card-linked offers reinforced that insight. The more Kudos removed friction, the more users leaned in.

The most explosive feature was that it was about the money that people typically don’t get to take advantage of. Kudos does not change how they currently spend or their spending behavior. It simply ensures that every time users spend money, they get money back.

Fundraising in a Market That Kept Moving the Goalposts

Kudos has raised roughly $20M across multiple rounds, but not in a straight line. Expectations changed year by year, fintech fell out of favor in 2021, and consumers became harder to fund. Instead of chasing hype, Tikue focused on fundamentals.

QED Investors steadily increased their conviction, eventually leading the Series A. Bridges came from insiders who believed in the business. As Tikue explains, they raised capital incrementally each year. In the first year, they raised $4M; in the second year, $3M; in the third year, $10M; and in the fourth year, $3M.

Storytelling is everything that Tikue Anazodo was able to master. The key is capturing the essence of what you are doing in 15 to 20 slides. For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley legend (see it here), where the most critical slides are highlighted.

Remember to unlock the pitch deck template that founders worldwide are using to raise millions below.

As Tikue recalls, when Kudos had that big inflection point two years ago and was about to go to market, QED was already an existing investor. He doesn’t believe in the concept of perpetually being on the runway. At some point, the business has to take off and have a path to cash flow positivity.

At that time, the company can dictate the terms on which it raises funding. Kudos is on the path to that place now. In the initial few years, Tikue and Ahmad focused on building a great product and working out how to grow it. But over the last couple of years, they have built a workable monetization engine.

The duo is focused on scaling forward so that, when Kudos is ready for future funding rounds, it has much more leverage. At that point, Kudos won’t necessarily need capital, but the capital is fuel that actually accelerates something that works really well.

The Long-Term Vision: A Truly Proactive Wallet

Tikue’s vision is simple, but ambitious. You open your wallet app, and it tells you it negotiated your internet bill down by $200, activated offers you forgot existed, or secured better cash back based on your habits.

Kudos agents can also negotiate better prices on products users have purchased and earn cash back. No prompts, no effort, and no optimization required. Just money quietly working in their favor. Tikue foresees a time when wallets will be more proactive rather than reactive.

Lessons for Founders: Monetize Earlier Than You Think

If Tikue could go back, he’d do one thing differently: charge and start monetizing earlier in the product lifecycle, so they were building the highest-value things for their users. Waiting to monetize until they figured out scale brought in users who didn’t truly value the product.

Charging forces clarity and optimization. It sharpens prioritization and reveals who actually cares. “The fastest way to learn what people love,” Tikue says, “is to ask them to pay.”

That’s when you can optimize to build a product people actually want to use. Next, you can layer on the other features and business models. With Kudos, they did it in reverse.

Building Networks as an Immigrant Founder

Retracing his entrepreneurial journey, Tikue talks about the value of building strategic networks. Being immigrants in a new country, he and his cofounder, Ahmad, had their share of challenges. Quitting their jobs and venturing into startup-building wasn’t an easy decision.

Kudos’ fundraising success wasn’t built overnight. It came from years of saying yes, doing good work, creating value, and not burning bridges. Networking and building relationships helped, and many of his early investors were former managers and executives.

Trust compounds when people see you execute consistently over time. Attending Columbia and meeting the right people also contributed significantly. Being in the right place was also an asset, and Tikue credits living in San Francisco for nine years with successfully building Kudos.

He leveraged the symbiosis of being around entrepreneurs and investors. Creating long-term connections with colleagues is also crucial, as is giving 100% to the job you’re doing. Introductions to the venture capital ecosystem from former bosses helped.

Navigating Regulation Without Losing Speed

Tikue navigated uncertainty on two major fronts when building Kudos — firstly, they were building a hyper-growth company. The second layer of complexity came from operating in a highly regulated segment. Balancing both aspects and pushing forward, regardless, was challenging.

Operating in fintech means constant trade-offs. Compliance shapes marketing, messaging, and product design. Kudos learned to stay nimble without crossing legal boundaries, whether that meant adjusting TikTok content or building automated education flows outside public channels.

Tikue cites regulations that restrict card issuers from mentioning card names or showing card art in their videos. Their first viral videos on social media platforms mentioned specific credit cards and the benefits users could get with them.

When Kudos started working with these card issuers, it also came under compliance restrictions. Tikue and his team had to pivot how they referred to credit cards. For instance, they used the term “big blue bank” to refer to Chase cards on TikTok and Instagram.

Tikue had to build workarounds, such as an automated flow, to engage users interested in learning more about specific products. The automation sends users the details they need directly into their inboxes — details which cannot be revealed in the videos.

Experience inside regulated giants like Google Pay helped Tikue understand where flexibility exists and where it doesn’t. As he explains, every time they build a fintech product, they must consider the Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices (UDAP) provisions of the Federal Trade Commission Act.

Under UDAP, Kudos must be cautious not to make deceptive claims. Fintech products can actually make very extreme claims, like guaranteeing that the user will save $500. Tikue and his team are careful to work within a framework and closely with their legal counsel when launching products.

Tikue understands the implications of building on the wrong side of the law and of regulation, and has gone deeper into compliance issues.

Final Thought

Kudos isn’t just another fintech product. It’s the result of years spent studying how real companies scale, how regulation works in practice, and how consumers actually behave. For Tikue Anazodo, the mission is clear: Build a wallet that works harder than its user—and does it quietly.

Listen to the full podcast episode to know more, including:

• Growing up in Lagos, where entrepreneurship is survival-wired, Tikue learned to solve problems by building, not waiting for systems to work.
• Starting computer science at Columbia without prior coding experience forced a steep ramp that became his unfair advantage in learning speed and a builder mindset.
• Microsoft and Google taught him what “real scale” requires: process, legal rigor, risk management, and fast iteration driven by massive data signals.
• Google Pay and Affirm revealed the core insight behind Kudos: most wallets optimize for merchants, while consumers need a wallet that optimizes for them.
• Kudos used a smart wedge (a best-card-at-checkout extension) to iterate toward the bigger vision of a “self-driving,” proactive wallet.
• The product promise is frictionless value: don’t change how people spend, just make every purchase return more money via rewards, offers, and agentic actions.
• Tikue’s fundraising and growth lesson is leverage: build monetization earlier, earn trust through strong execution, and raise capital to accelerate—not as oxygen.

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Keep in mind that storytelling is everything in fundraising. In this regard, for a winning pitch deck to help you, take a look at the template created by Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley legend (see it here), which I recently covered. Thiel was the first angel investor in Facebook with a $500K check that turned into more than $1 billion in cash. 

Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that founders worldwide are using to raise millions below.

 

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