In a bid to add to the growing list of adoption drivers in Africa, Nestcoin has raised funds to further this cause.
Nestcoin has announced the successful acquisition of funding from a recently concluded pre-seed round on Feb 1. This round was led by Venture Capital firms, Distributed Global, and Alter Global. The company intends to use its platform to drive crypto adoption in Africa and other emerging markets.
More Blockchain Adoption Drivers In Africa
Distributed Global and Alter Global have been actively involved in the fintech space. The former focuses primarily on the blockchain industry in Africa, while the latter supports tech entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Among the participants of the funding round were Serena Ventures, Alameda Research, A&T Capital, MSA Capital, 4DX Ventures and a few others. Nestcoin was co-founded by Bundle Africa’s CEO Yele Bademosi and Taiwo Orilogbon.
According to a tweet by Yele, the funding will help to expand the team, which currently spans nine countries. The company also intends to expand its product offerings and invest in other platforms with goals that align with theirs.
Since its launch in November 2021, the company has made efforts that confirms its intentions to accelerate crypto and web3 adoption in Africa.
These efforts included opening an education media outlet to bridge the information gap enlightening Africans on blockchain. This platform, called Breach will set up different strategies to provide crypto-related information for frontier markets.
Secondly, Nestcoin has delved into the Metaverse industry, a budding market that will allow users to play and earn. According to the company, one of their products, Metaverse Magna, already enables gamers to make up to $1000 monthly.
Crypto adoption accelerates in Africa
Nestcoin might be new to the fast-developing African market, but it is just one of the other adoption drivers in the space. Yele, formerly the Director of Binance Labs in Africa, supervised the launchpad programme that incubated and grew different projects. Giant cryptocurrency exchange Binance pioneered this effort.
Binance has continued to position itself at the forefront of the drivers of cryptocurrency adoption in Africa. The company has latched on to the emerging markets in countries like Nigeria, currently at the forefront of this race. The crypto exchange has successfully achieved this by providing one of the largest peer-to-peer (P2P) markets to trade digital assets. Over the years, traders appear to have become more reliant on crypto exchange in the face of a fast depleting currency valuation.
In a statement addressing the recent indiscriminate restriction of Nigeria accounts Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao, re-emphasized his company’s position. This happened after an outcry on Twitter following the development.
Africa has maintained a decent global ranking in the race for crypto adoption. On-chain research firm, Chainalysis, has revealed that Kenya and Nigeria recorded the highest crypto adoption in the continent.
The 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index Top 20
Source: Chainalysis
The report showed that, among African countries, Kenya ranked the highest on the Global crypto adoption index. This grading carefully combines records from the on-chain value received, On-chain retail value received, and P2P trade volume. The East African country was closely followed by Nigeria, with an overall index ranking of 5 and 6 respectively. Both African countries fell behind Vietnam, India, Pakistan, and Ukraine on the list. Other African countries that made it to the top 20 include Togo, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and Tanzania.
Source: Chainalysis
A graphical representation of this index reveals that African countries are quickly making their way to the top of this list. This is no coincidence as the continent has many real-life use cases for blockchain. Uses ranging from remittances to inflation hedge and security against currency devaluation are among the most significant applications within the region.
Do you think there will be room for more startups like Nestcoin to fill Africa’s emerging market? Let’s know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Kingsley is a fintech writer with over 4 years of experience covering blockchain and cryptocurrency news. Alo first discovered Bitcoin in 2016 and has been passionate about it ever since, particularly the various ways blockchain can help Africa and the world at large. He desires to give the crypto space a more geographically balanced narrative and serve as a bridge between Africa and the rest of the world. His articles have been featured in Cointelegraph, Beincrypto, and Forkast.news, among others.
