---
title: "Why Bento Africa shut down"
description: "Bento Africa, a Nigerian payroll/HR fintech, shut down operations on February 10, 2025 after unpaid salaries triggered a walkout by its 10-person engineering team, the CEO's resignation, and revelations of unremitted employee tax and pension contributions under investigation by Lagos Internal Revenue Service and the EFCC."
canonical_url: "https://liners.com/graveyard/bento-africa"
markdown_url: "https://liners.com/graveyard/bento-africa.md"
type: "graveyard"
language: "en"
image: "/graveyard/bento-africa/certificate.png"
published_at: "2026-07-31T17:41:07.836Z"
updated_at: "2026-07-31T17:41:07.836Z"
---

# Why Bento Africa shut down

Bento Africa, a Nigerian payroll/HR fintech, shut down operations on February 10, 2025 after unpaid salaries triggered a walkout by its 10-person engineering team, the CEO's resignation, and revelations of unremitted employee tax and pension contributions under investigation by Lagos Internal Revenue Service and the EFCC.

## Breadcrumbs

- [Graveyard](/graveyard)
- [Bento Africa](/graveyard/bento-africa)

## Summary

Here lies Bento Africa. It ran payroll, tax and pensions for African companies from one platform. Then it could not make its own payroll: engineers walked out unpaid, the CEO resigned, and the deductions it was trusted to remit went missing.

Bento Africa, a Nigerian payroll/HR fintech, shut down operations on February 10, 2025 after unpaid salaries triggered a walkout by its 10-person engineering team, the CEO's resignation, and revelations of unremitted employee tax and pension contributions under investigation by Lagos Internal Revenue Service and the EFCC.

## Product history

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Fate | ShutDown |
| Primary cause | GovernanceFraud |
| Stage at shutdown | Seed |
| Lifespan in days | 2953 |

## Autopsy report

## What the product attempted

An all-in-one HR/payroll platform for African businesses covering payroll, compliance, remittances, hiring, and employee management.

## Early warning signs

Manual payroll processing since 2024 due to payment processor issues; underfunded client accounts requiring manual reconciliation; delayed employee salaries; investigations opened by Lagos Internal Revenue Service and the EFCC into unremitted tax and pension deductions.

## What happened

Financial strain led Bento to delay its own staff salaries in January 2025; its 10-person engineering team walked out after refusing to work unpaid; CEO Ebun Okubanjo resigned on January 30, 2025; without engineers, automated payroll processing broke down, causing at least three business clients to report failed payroll disbursements; the company announced a shutdown on February 10, 2025 while investigations into tax/pension irregularities proceeded.

## Sources

- [The Cautionary Tale of Bento Africa](https://startupgraveyard.africa/blog/the-cautionary-tale-of-bento-africa): TechCabal
- [Bento Africa temporarily shuts down amid financial and operational crisis](https://technext24.com/2025/02/10/bento-africa-temporarily-shuts-down/): Technext
- [Bento Africa rehires key staff to address payroll backlog](https://techpoint.africa/2025/02/10/bento-africa-rehires-staff/): Techpoint Africa
- [Bento Africa Halts Operations Amidst Financial Troubles and CEO Exit](https://fintechmagazine.africa/2025/02/11/bento-africa-halts-operations-amidst-financial-troubles-and-ceo-exit/): FinTech Magazine Africa
- [What Happened to Bento and How to Safeguard Your Company's Payroll](https://blog.salariopay.com/what-happened-to-bento/): Salariopay

## Related pages

- [Bento Africa alternatives](/bento-africa/alternatives)
- [Liners Graveyard](/graveyard)

## Access and citation

- [Canonical HTML page](https://liners.com/graveyard/bento-africa)
- [Markdown route index](/sitemap.md)
- [Agent access guide](/llms.txt)