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Vatar Inc., the Nigerian social worlds company behind the viral browser game Lagos Life, has raised a $500k angel round at a $10 million valuation.
The funding comes just nine days after Lagos Life launched on October 1, Nigeria’s Independence Day, and has already surpassed 4.7 million players. The angel round was led by three of Africa’s most prominent tech founders. Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, co-founder and CEO of Flutterwave, backed the company through his fund, Resilience17, with participation from Nathan Nwachuku, co-founder and CEO of Terra Industries, and Abdulhamid “AB” Hassan, co-founder and CEO of Mono. Angel investor Oo Nwoye also participated in this round.
“Lagos Life launched on October 1st. Just 9 days later, over 4.7 million people have played the game,” the company said on LinkedIn, while announcing the funding.
Vatar Inc. was incorporated on 6 October 2026 by co-founder and CEO Shalom Rayhamen, chief product officer Owen Rayhamen, and chief business development officer Anderson Oriahi. According to the company, the funding round was opened and closed within a single day.
The company is building browser-based games that draw on Nigerian culture and daily life. Rayhamen brings nearly a decade of software development experience, primarily in JavaScript for web and mobile applications, and built the game with assistance from AI tools, including Anthropic’s API.
The game, Lagos Life, was launched on October 1 after Rayhamen began building it the night before. She began at 9 PM, took a short nap, and released the game at 7 AM the following morning. The free-to-play browser game places users inside a virtual Lagos where they can create characters, find jobs, earn virtual naira, pay rent, travel on danfo buses, buy generators to manage power cuts, and even participate in a virtual government.
The in-game clock of Lagos Life follows real Lagos time and features recognisable city landmarks, including the Quilox nightclub and the Amala Shitta food spot. The game has attracted 4.5 million users since launch and averages more than 1.5 million daily players, with more than 10.8 million unique visitors recorded to date. Players come from 15 countries, with Nigeria accounting for the majority of its user base, followed by the United States, the United Kingdom, Ghana, Canada, and the Netherlands.
Vatar has built several revenue streams around Lagos Life, including virtual billboards, in-game land sales, branded integrations for businesses, musician partnerships in virtual clubs, and optional in-game currency top-ups processed by Flutterwave. Chowdeck, a popular food delivery platform in Nigeria, appears as an app on every character’s in-game phone. Rayhamen has said Vatar has earned and contracted more than $170k since launch.
While Lagos Life is just the beginning, Vatar is already expanding its virtual world beyond Lagos. It added Port Harcourt recently and plans to build social worlds rooted in real cities and bring them online one by one.
The funding will be deployed to design a premium interface, add additional game depth, and expand Vatar’s game portfolio. “Lagos is just the beginning. We’re building entire worlds, and there’s so much more to come,” Vatar said.
