A Nigerian-born entrepreneur is behind a U.S. fintech that began by solving a highly specialised accounting problem and has since evolved into a broader financial technology platform for businesses.
George Azih, founder of Atlanta-based FinQuery, built the company around a simple but difficult problem: helping finance teams manage complex accounting requirements without relying heavily on spreadsheets and manual processes.
The company, originally launched as LeaseQuery, focused on lease accounting before expanding into other areas of corporate financial management. In 2024, it rebranded as FinQuery to reflect that broader ambition.
The U.S. Mission Nigeria recently spotlighted Azih for his contribution to financial technology and innovation, drawing attention to a Nigerian entrepreneur whose company has become part of the U.S. business-software ecosystem.
From lease accounting problem to fintech company
FinQuery’s origins can be traced to Azih’s experience in technical accounting.
According to the founder, he encountered the problem while working at a Fortune 500 company, where changes to lease-accounting rules threatened to make an already complicated process even more difficult.
The experience convinced him that businesses needed specialised software rather than spreadsheets and fragmented manual processes to manage their lease portfolios and remain compliant.
Azih founded LeaseQuery in 2011, initially concentrating on lease-accounting software.
The company subsequently developed a cloud-based platform capable of managing lease data and generating accounting outputs required under standards including ASC 842 and IFRS 16.
That narrow focus became the foundation for a much larger fintech business.
Why LeaseQuery became FinQuery
The company’s transformation was formalised in February 2024, when LeaseQuery changed its name to FinQuery.
The rebrand reflected a strategic shift away from being primarily identified with lease accounting toward becoming a wider platform for managing corporate contracts and spending.
FinQuery said its platform was designed to help finance, accounting and IT teams manage areas of spending such as leases, software, subscriptions and other contractual commitments.
The company also expanded its technology offering to provide greater visibility into spending, software usage, cash-flow forecasts and contract renewals.
In other words, the fintech’s proposition moved from “How do we account for our leases?” toward the broader question of “How do companies understand and control their financial commitments?”
That shift is important because corporate spending is often spread across accounting systems, contracts, invoices and individual departments.
FinQuery is attempting to bring more of that information into a unified technology layer.
What FinQuery actually sells
FinQuery operates primarily as a business-to-business financial software company rather than a consumer payments fintech.
Its current platform includes tools for lease accounting, debt management, and accrued and prepaid expenses.
Its lease-accounting technology can generate amortisation schedules, journal entries and disclosure reports while supporting accounting requirements across several standards.
Its debt-management product is designed to help companies monitor debt covenants and automate elements of financial reporting.
The company has also introduced technology for automating accounting associated with accrued and prepaid expenses.
This places FinQuery within the growing category of financial automation software, where technology is used to take repetitive or complex financial processes traditionally handled manually by accountants and finance teams and make them more automated.
The business behind the software
FinQuery’s growth has attracted significant outside capital.
In April 2024, the company announced a $25 million minority investment led by Periphas Capital and supported by Lavelle Capital.
FinQuery said the investment would be used to accelerate product development and strategic acquisitions as the company expanded its platform.
Endeavor, which profiles Azih and FinQuery, has previously reported that the company had raised $65 million in total and employed between 200 and 500 people at the time of its 2024 profile.
The company’s earlier growth had already attracted industry recognition. Its former LeaseQuery business was recognised as a FinTech solution by the Software & Information Industry Association in 2022.
Fintech is moving beyond payments
FinQuery’s story also illustrates how broad the definition of fintech has become.
For many consumers, fintech is associated with digital banks, mobile payments, lending apps, investment platforms and cryptocurrency.
But a large part of the financial technology industry operates behind the scenes.
Companies such as FinQuery build software for the people responsible for running finance departments — accountants, controllers, CFOs and other financial professionals.
Their products may never be used directly by a consumer, but they can influence how businesses account for assets, monitor liabilities, manage spending and prepare financial information.
That makes FinQuery part of the B2B fintech and financial automation market, where software increasingly sits between a company’s financial data and its decision-makers.
A Nigerian founder in America’s fintech ecosystem
Azih’s background gives FinQuery an additional Nigerian connection.
The U.S. Mission Nigeria’s recognition puts the founder’s story within the growing global footprint of Nigerian entrepreneurs working in technology and financial services.
But FinQuery’s significance goes beyond its founder’s nationality.
The company’s evolution shows how a specialised technology product can become a broader financial platform by identifying adjacent problems within the same corporate workflow.
It started with leases.
It moved into contracts and spending intelligence.
It has since expanded into areas including debt and accrual accounting.
For businesses, the underlying proposition remains the same: use technology to make complicated financial processes easier to manage, automate repetitive work and give finance teams better visibility into their numbers.
And that is increasingly where the next generation of fintech is being built — not only in the apps consumers use to move money, but also in the software businesses use to understand where their money is going.
