Globally, cryptocurrency industry funding has been growing increasingly fast in the past couple of years. Last year alone, crypto startups raised over $27 billion in venture capital in 2021 —slightly higher than the past 10 years combined. And just last month, despite a dip in the price of cryptocurrencies, American VC, Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm launched a $2.2 billion fund, one of its biggest efforts to fund crypto startups. The firm is reaffirming its commitment to crypto with its third and largest industry specific fund, after investing $850 million last year between 2 rounds of investments. This shows that institutional investors are getting more comfortable in putting their money in crypto—an entirely different experience 4 or 5 years ago.
In Africa, Web3—powered by crypto, is becoming a large industry, and it is not surprising because Africa is the fastest adopter of cryptocurrency in the world, consequently, investors are pumping money into the industry on the continent.
On a mission to further deepen crypto adoption in Africa is Nigerian crypto startup Nestcoin which is building out Web3 products. Today, Nestcoin announced that it raised a $6.5 million pre-seed round. Since launching last year, in November, with a promise to “help Nigerians first, then other Africans, exit the status quo by offering them access to wealth using crypto technology or elements of web 3.0 like NFT, DAOs and DeFi,” Nestcoin has made tremendous progress.
Founded by former Binance director Yele Bademosi and former Bundle Africa CTO, Taiwo Orilogbon, Nestcoin has made good on its promise to create crypto-native products beyond trading and investments, with a focus on driving the adoption of crypto in Africa.
Last year, it launched Breach, a media arm to simplify complex crypto topics to a global audience. It later launched one of Africa’s earliest play-to-earn crypto games, Metaverse Magna (MVM), which it says will allow members of its gaming community to earn as much as $1,000 monthly. It has invested in Lazerpay, a crypto startup that allows businesses to accept payment in crypto, and collaborated with fintech, Bitsika and its music superstar partner Davido to launch the Echoke social token. Nescoin has hinted that it is developing several other products to “provide compelling use cases for crypto”.
“We are excited that our investors are backing this ambitious plan to create a future where billions of people in frontier markets have access to the opportunities that crypto brings. With this financing, we will continue to grow our diverse team, which already spans 9 countries, expand our product offerings, and invest in more ventures aligned with our vision,” says Nestcoin’s CEO, Yele Bademosi, in a statement.
The company, which boasts of a global network of investors, had its round led by Distributed Global, Alter Global, Serena Ventures, Alameda Research, and A&T Capital. Other institutional investors include MSA Capital, 4DX Ventures, Raba Capital, Goat.vc, Old Fashion Research, CMT Digital, Electric Capital, Social Capital, CoinFund, gumi Cryptos Capital, DeFi Alliance, among others.
Nestcoin, in a statement, says that the new funding will enable it to expand its global operations and invest in building products that will help accelerate crypto adoption and financial freedom for people in frontier markets.
