Anyone who has been to a Nigerian wedding knows what cash spraying looks like. Notes raining down on the dance floor, guests pressing money into the couple’s hands, the general organised chaos of celebrating with physical cash. A new Nigerian fintech startup thinks it has found a better way.
Galafy, a digital gifting platform founded by Adewole Akanji and Kolawole Martin, launched this week with a straightforward pitch: keep the tradition of giving alive, but move it to your phone.
The platform was created to make the tradition of giving easier, safer, and more convenient without taking away the cultural value attached to celebrations. Akanji was clear about what Galafy is and is not trying to do. He said the company is not trying to replace Nigerian culture but is using technology to preserve it in a way that fits today’s world and tomorrow’s economy.
The concept is simple. Instead of handing over physical cash at a wedding, birthday, concert, or religious gathering, a guest opens the Galafy app and sends a digital gift to the event host or couple in real time.
Users can legally send digital “sprays,” monitor every gift in real time, and receive monetary gifts instantly from family, friends, and supporters anywhere in the world.
The platform is available on both Android and iOS devices and enables users to send gifts in real time to newly married couples, event hosts, performers, content creators, family members, and friends.
One of the strongest use cases for Galafy is not even at the event itself. It is for Nigerians living abroad who want to participate in celebrations happening back home but cannot be physically present.
The company said the platform is expected to make celebrations more inclusive by allowing people within Nigeria and across the diaspora to participate in important events even when they are unable to attend physically.
This is a genuine gap in the market. A Nigerian living in the United Kingdom or Canada who wants to contribute to a sibling’s wedding in Lagos currently has to navigate bank transfers, mobile money, or asking someone at the event to receive cash on their behalf. Galafy aims to make that a one-tap process.
Beyond the cultural pitch, Galafy is also positioning itself as part of Nigeria’s broader push toward a cashless economy. Akanji explained that the platform supports Nigeria’s drive towards a cashless economy by reducing the need to carry physical cash during celebrations.
This is a practical argument. Carrying large amounts of cash to events creates real security risks, and the social pressure to spray generously can sometimes push people to withdraw more than they can comfortably afford.
Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Kolawole Martin said the platform was built to combine simplicity with security, explaining that the goal was to build something that feels effortless for users while providing the security, speed, and reliability expected from a modern fintech solution. He added that every feature in Galafy has been designed with simplicity, trust, and scalability in mind.
Martin also highlighted that the platform was built to work across age groups, not just for tech-savvy young Nigerians, since the people most likely to be gifting at events span a very wide age range.
The platform also has utility beyond social events. Martin noted that it is useful for content creators when hosting live streams, giving creators another way to receive support from their audience in real time during broadcasts.
One important detail the article does not address is whether Galafy holds the necessary regulatory approvals from the Central Bank of Nigeria or the Securities and Exchange Commission to operate as a digital payment or gifting platform. Anyone considering using the app to send or receive money should verify its licensing status before transacting, as this is standard due diligence for any Nigerian fintech product.
The strongest thing Galafy has going for it is that it is not fighting Nigerian culture. It is betting on it. Cash spraying is not going away anytime soon, and the emotional meaning behind giving at celebrations is deeply embedded in how Nigerians mark important moments. What Galafy is offering is a version of that same tradition that works for the relative abroad, the guest who forgot to stop at an ATM, and the couple who wants a proper record of every gift they received.
Whether Nigerians actually adopt it at scale will depend on how easy the onboarding process is, how reliable the transactions feel under real event conditions, and crucially, whether the regulatory picture gets clarified publicly. But the idea itself is rooted in something real, and that gives it a better starting point than most fintech launches.
