Bento’s CEO and co-founder, Ebun Okubanjo has resigned from the company barely a week after the Lagos Inland Revenue Service (LIRS) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) opened investigations into alleged failures to remit tax and pension payments on behalf of clients.
Okubanjo also relinquished his equity and debt in the six-year-old company, according to a leaked email he sent to the board.
“This latest episode is my breaking point. I have informed the team to pause all transactions,” the embattled founder wrote in a distressed email. “So no new money is coming in and we are no longer processing payroll as of maybe 1 hour from now.”
The resignation comes a week after Akintunde Sultan, co-founder of edtech firm AltSchool, publicly accused Bento of remitting a negligible sum to the LIRS despite collecting substantial payments from startups. Other founders also raised concerns on social media platform X about alleged mismanagement of pension and payroll taxes.
Okubanjo acknowledged the product’s potential in his resignation letter but cited difficulties with Nigeria’s tax and remittance system, contrasting it with the more streamlined approach in the U.S., where he uses Gusto for his own business.
“Until that happens—scale will be a challenge,” he wrote. Okubanjo plans to focus on Ada AI, an AI-powered sales assistant currently in development.
This marks Okubanjo’s second departure from the CEO role. He briefly stepped down in March 2022 following allegations of a toxic work culture, returning to the position in September of the same year after his co-founder and successor, Chidozie Okonkwo, resigned.
Bento, which raised $2.1 million in seed funding in 2021, is part of a wave of startups offering salary automation, statutory remittances, and loan access. However, repeated reputational setbacks have hindered its progress compared to competitors like PaidHR and SeamlessHR. Okubanjo’s resignation will further impact the company’s market share, despite its pioneering role in Nigeria’s HR tech sector.
