We're building the first AI meal platform made for Nigerian food
akaani is the first AI-powered meal platform that truly understands West African cuisine and turns it into a precision health tool for millions of people.
When we started building together, we realised this wasn't just one person's experience. We had both moved from Nigeria to the United States, and like many in the diaspora, we missed the food we grew up eating. Our first instinct was that the problem was ingredients - the crayfish, the ogiri, the right palm oil. So we started exploring African grocery supply, convinced that if people had what they needed, the rest would follow. It didn't. Even with the right ingredients, people still didn't know what to cook or how it fit their lives. We were trying to eat with more intention ourselves, paying attention to protein, eating toward our goals but African food had no structure for that. No tools, no framework, nothing built with it in mind. Just memory and guesswork.
Meanwhile, every meal planning app, macro tracker, and recipe tool was designed around Western food. And African food content, as rich as it was culturally, didn't bridge the gap to your goals. You could find the recipe. You couldn't find out how it fit your week. That left people making a choice between enjoying food without understanding how it fit your goals, or focusing on your goals without knowing how to bring African meals into it. So we built akaani to bridge that gap.
akaani brings structure to African meals by helping you decide what to eat based on your preferences, goals, and lifestyle, without losing the culture in the process. With Lu, our AI guide, you go from not knowing what to eat to a clear, personalised answer in seconds. And when you don't want to cook, akaani Meals brings that same experience to your door. The food you love, prepared for you, without the guesswork.
We're starting with Nigerian cuisine. But the vision is bigger: to make African food easier to navigate, easier to access, and easier to fit into everyday life. Because you should never have to choose between your culture and your eating goals.
Our values shape every decision we make.
These aren't words on a wall. They're the principles that guide how we build akaani and how Lu shows up for you every day.
Culture first
African food is not a niche it's the daily reality of over a billion people. Every decision we make starts by asking: does this honour the culture it serves? We never compromise cultural identity for convenience.
Radical Personalisation
Generic health advice has failed Africa for decades. We believe nutrition must be as individual as a fingerprint shaped by your food culture, your health goals, your pantry, and your lived experience. Lu learns you, not a profile.
Science-Backed Always
Every nutritional value in akaani is sourced from peer-reviewed research and validated by registered dieticians who specialise in West African food systems. We never guess. We verify.
Privacy & Trust
Your health data is yours. We never sell user data, never show ads, and never share personal information with third parties. Akaani's only business model is building something people love enough to pay for.
The people behind every meal plan.
We're a small, passionate team of food lovers and engineers, united by a single belief: African food deserves world class technology built around it.
Richard Igbiriki
Co-founder, akaani
Richard is a software engineer drawn to solving practical, everyday problems. His firsthand experience navigating African food and access as a Nigerian in the United States became the starting point for akaani
Susan Olapade
Co-founder, akaani
Peter Omidiji
Product Designer
Roland Enola
Frontend Engineer
Michael Philip
Product Marketer
