We love black business and black entprepreneurship here at Urban Intellectuals. Thus, when this story rolled off the press about a Nigerian born entrepreneur selling his company for $1 billion dollars, we had to present it to the readership.

Chinedu Echeruo is the massively impressive entrepreneur behind HopStop.com that was just aquired by Apple, Inc for $1 billion dollars according to The Wall Street Journal’s AllThingsDigital report. Echeruo sold the company will remain the chairman of the board.

HopStop.com is a mobile applications company for both iOS and the Android platform. They cover over 300 cities and help people find local directions, subways stations, trains and bus stops. All the terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed as of yet.

The move by Apple, Inc to make the purchase of HopSpot.com is thought to bolster Apple’s plan to offer more and more mapping services. In addition, this is a move to counter Google’s purchase of the ever popular Waze app in the marketplace as well.

Chinedu Echeruo is a highly successful, serial entrepreneur.

He grew up in Eastern Nigeria and attended Kings College, Lagos.

Chinedu Echeruo is a highly successful, serial entrepreneur. He grew up in Eastern Nigeria and attended Kings College, Lagos. From there he went to Syracuse University and Harvard Business School, then worked several years in Mergers and Aquisitions and Leveraged Finance groups of J.

P. Morgan Chase.

He raised nearly $8 million to start HopStop.com and Tripology.com. In 2010, Tripology.com was purchased by American Travel and navigation company, Rand McNally. And now, HopStop.com was purchased by Apple, Inc for $1 billion dollars.

Like a true serial entrepreneur, Echeruo is already working on another business and project. This time he is focusing his talents on the Motherland, Africa. He says it is for small businesses on the continent, “crowd sourced business in a box.”

According to him:

“There is no reason why every entrepreneur should have to reinvent the wheel every single time in all the countries in Africa. My idea is to essentially to have one place where a budding entrepreneur can access a template for starting a business, and then customize it to suit their own situation. Essentially a business-in-a-box.”

With his track record, access and smarts, it is sure to be another hit in a long line of successes for the entrepreneur.

Source: African Leadership