A 400-level CS project became Nigeria's most trusted student marketplace.
NSUK Online started in a Keffi Main Campus dorm room with one stubborn idea: NSUK students deserve a marketplace where every seller is verified, every payment is protected, and no fresher ever gets scammed buying a used textbook.
As featured in Punch Newspapers & AIT Campus Beat
From a 400-level CS project to a ₦1.2B GMV marketplace.
In late 2022, Adekunle Bello — then a 400-level Computer Science student — was tired of watching juniors lose money to scam textbook sellers on generic WhatsApp groups. He roped in three classmates from the Department of Economics, and they spent a semester building the first version of NSUK Online in a corner of the Keffi Main Campus Innovation Hub.
The premise was simple: every seller would be matched to a valid NSUK student or staff ID before their listing went live. Every payment would sit in escrow until the buyer confirmed pickup. It sounded obvious — until the numbers started moving.
By early 2024, the platform had processed ₦1.2 billion in cumulative GMV across 41,000+ successful transactions. That traction unlocked a ₦45 million pre-seed round led by Microtractor, with participation from six angel investors — including the current NSUK Director of ICT.
Today, the team is 11 people strong: eight current or former NSUK students, plus three senior engineers drawn from the Andela and Flutterwave alumni networks. The HQ remains a desk inside the Keffi Innovation Hub.
Endorsed by the NSUK Student Union. Cited by national press.
Four reasons skeptical students stop worrying and start listing.
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01
Official NSUK Student Union partnership
Endorsed by the SU President and featured in the campus newsletter for three consecutive semesters. NSUK Online is the only marketplace the Student Union actively recommends to incoming freshers.
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02
Featured in Punch Newspapers & AIT Campus Beat
Cited as "the fastest-growing student commerce platform in North Central Nigeria" by both Punch Newspapers and AIT's Campus Beat desk in their 2024 student-startup coverage.
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03
'Best Campus Startup' — Nasarawa Innovation Summit 2024
Awarded the top campus-startup honour at the 2024 Nasarawa State Innovation Summit, judged by a panel including the NSUK Vice-Chancellor's office and the state's Ministry of Science & Technology.
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04
₦45M pre-seed from Microtractor & 6 angels
Backed by a ₦45 million pre-seed round led by Microtractor, with six angel investors in the syndicate — including the current NSUK Director of ICT. Capital is ring-fenced for engineering, escrow reserves, and on-campus pickup logistics.
11 people. 8 of them NSUK students themselves.
You are not listing to a faceless corporation — you are listing to the same people you queue behind at the Main Library.
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Adekunle Bello
Founder & CEO 400-Level, Computer Science, NSUK Keffi (2022). Built the first version in the Keffi Innovation Hub. -
Ngozi Eze
Head of Product BSc Economics, NSUK Keffi (2023). Designed the verified-listing flow and the escrow buyer journey. -
Tunde Alabi
Engineering Lead Former senior engineer at Andela. Owns platform reliability, escrow rails, and the Android app (89% of all transactions). -
Halima Suleiman
Trust & Safety Lead 400-Level, Sociology, NSUK Keffi. Runs the 24-hour dispute desk — 100% resolution rate on every disputed trade in 2024.
Plus seven more — operations, growth, on-campus pickup, and two more Flutterwave-alumni engineers.
₦1.2 billion moved. 0.4% fraud rate.
Hard proof that NSUK Online is not another campus experiment — it is the trading floor NSUK students now default to.
“This is the marketplace I trust my own juniors to use. Every seller is a verified NSUK student, every payment is held until pickup, and the team is sitting in our Innovation Hub — not in some Lagos office building. When freshers ask me where to buy a hostel mattress or a used calculator, I send them to NSUK Online.”