The US and Africa-based blockchain payments startup Bitmama has raised an additional $1.65 million in funding, bringing its total pre-seed round to $2 million.
Bitmama’s initial $350,000 pre-seed was raised in October 2021 and included investors Unicorn Growth Capital, Launch Africa Ventures, Adaverse and Flori Ventures.
The new round includes investors from the initial pre-seed round as well as new investors including Tekedia Capital, GreenHouse Capital, ODBA, Five35 Ventures, Chrysalis Capital, Enrich Africa, Thrive Africa, Angellist Ventures, and angel investors including CELO founders: Rene Reinsberg, and Marek Olszewski, and Honey Ogundeyi.
According to a statement shared with TechCabal, the new pre-seed round will be used to expand the company’s operational presence, strengthen its team across different markets, consolidate its product offerings, and plot market penetration across Africa. With this expansion, it seeks to rapidly scale new use cases for cryptocurrency within the continent.
Currently present in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, Bitmama enables its users to trade several cryptocurrencies, use their debit cards for regular online payments, pay utilities and perform transactions such as staking to hedge against currency devaluation.
The startup’s major products are the Bitmama exchange, which allows users to access virtual assets and explore several cryptocurrency use cases, and Changera, a social payment solution that allows non-crypto-savvy customers to use their money without limits from anywhere in the world.
Speaking on the funding round, Ruth Iselema, founder and CEO of Bitmama, stated that both products are approaching 100,000 users across the African market and recording impressive daily active users.
“We are building Africa’s most user-friendly, innovative blockchain company, and we are glad to have the backing of seasoned investors and partners who have walked similar turfs. We are privileged to learn from their blended experiences across corporate and blockchain business verticals,” she added.
For Five35 Ventures, founding partner Hema Vallabh stated: “Being a leading female-focused VC fund, we at Five35 Ventures look forward to helping Ruth and her dynamic team scale Bitmama, especially seeing the growth of Changera, the remittance platform that allows all Africans to transact internationally at much cheaper rates than established remittance companies in the market.”
