Sim Shagaya has spent more than a decade solving access problems in Nigeria. First with Konga in e-commerce, then with uLesson and Miva Open University in education. Now he is turning his attention to a market that has long frustrated observers: insurance. More than 70% of Nigerians have no insurance coverage as of 2025, according to the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers, and the sector's total assets crossed ₦4 trillion in Q4 2024 despite that gap.
Shagaya's read on the situation cuts against the popular explanation. "It's not that Nigerians don't understand protection," he told TechCabal in a May 11 interview. "The desire for protection is there. What has been lacking is the distribution of structured protection products to people who haven't had it." He points out that most insurance premiums in Nigeria still flow from large corporate clients offering coverage as an employee benefit, leaving everyday consumers largely untouched.
His answer is Myka, a licensed digital broker that lets both consumers and businesses shop insurance products from multiple providers in one place. At launch, Myka covers motor, gadget, property, health, life, and travel insurance. The model draws a deliberate parallel to agency banking, which brought financial services to millions of Nigerians who had no bank branch nearby.
Myka has closed a pre-seed round, amount undisclosed, with backing from Ventures Platform, TLcom, Paystack co-founder Shola Akinlade, LemFi founder Ridwan Olalere, and Voltron Capital founder Olumide Soyombo. The investor list alone signals serious confidence that insurance distribution is the next frontier. Whether Myka can do for coverage what agent networks did for cash is the question worth watching.
Originally published by TechCabal.