How 2 Nigerian students in the United States founded Guideli,as a customized migration tool

Guideli, a Nigerian-founded firm, is a settlement management application that offers specialized relocation resources and simplifies the complex immigration processes.

Its two co-founders came up with the idea while studying in the United States (US).

Guideli, founded by Daniel Jayeoba and Oyebade Adepegba, uses artificial intelligence to empower and guide immigrants every step of the way.

“We achieve this by providing personalised information from pre-departure to settlement and leveraging AI to draft and manage visa applications,” Jayeoba said in an interview with Disrupt Africa.

He explained that the pair realized the necessity for a platform like Guideli when they moved from Nigeria to the United States for education.

“We were excited for the new experience, but we did not anticipate the excruciating difficulties that came with settling in a new country.” Due to a lack of information and expensive legal options, we battled to determine our legal standing, negotiate the new landscape, and develop community,” Jayeoba explained.

“This caused constant anxiety, and after speaking with other newcomers in the US, we discovered that our difficulties were not unique to us.” The theme was that newcomers require a consistent and assertive guide to help them manage the arduous relocation and settlement process in new countries.”

Jayeoba and Adepegba went on to become attorneys, earning immigration law expertise and equipping themselves with the required abilities and knowledge to deal with the matter. As a result, they launched Guideli in 2022.

“Currently, relocation and settlement is by word of mouth, multiple online sources and immigration service providers which are expensive and fragmented leading to anxiety, missed opportunities and misinformation,” Jayeoba said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the present solutions are entirely focused on visa application support. Guideli, on the other hand, intends to cover the entire route.

“Demand for our solution has been overwhelming; we have over 10,000 potential users on our waitlist, representing a potential revenue of US$18 million, and we are engaged through bi-weekly immigration and settlement events.” Notably, our first event received over 500 sign-ups in less than an hour, all through organic marketing. “We formed partnerships with two immigration attorneys and worked with ethnic affinity clubs at Harvard and Yale,” Jayeoba explained.

The firm has been bootstrapped but has received outside finance from Techstars after being accepted into the Techstars Detroit Fall 2023 cohort.

“Our revenue strategy is advertisement revenue from entities targeting immigrants and a premium subscription for access to AI-assisted immigration management tools,” Jayeoba, the company’s CEO, stated.