Bitmama, a blockchain payments firm with operations in the US and Africa, has secured an additional $1.65 million, bringing the total amount obtained in its pre-seed round to $2 million.
In October 2021, investors including Unicorn Growth Capital, Launch Africa Ventures, Adaverse, and Flori Ventures contributed to Bitmama’s inaugural $350,000 pre-seed round.
CELO founders Rene Reinsberg, Marek Olszewski, and Honey Ogundeyi, as well as new investors Tekedia Capital, GreenHouse Capital, ODBA, Five35 Ventures, Chrysalis Capital, Enrich Africa, Thrive Africa, Angellist Ventures, and others, have participated in the fresh round of funding.
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The funds from the new pre-seed round will be used to improve the company’s workforce in key regions, streamline the company’s product line, and map out expansion plans in Africa, according to a statement. The goal of this growth is to significantly increase the number of bitcoin applications across the continent.
Why The Investors Invested
Since its inception, the firm has seen significant growth. Bitmama’s creator and CEO Ruth Iselema has said that the company is quickly nearing 100,000 customers across the African market and is registering remarkable daily active users.
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.”
A Look At What Bitmama Does
Bitmama, which is now available in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, allows its customers to trade several cryptocurrencies, utilise debit cards for everyday online purchases, pay utilities, and engage in staking as a means of protecting themselves against currency depreciation.
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Bitmama is an exchange that gives consumers access to virtual assets and a variety of cryptocurrency use cases; Changera is a social payment solution that gives customers who aren’t familiar with cryptocurrencies access to their money at any time, anywhere in the globe.
“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.
Bitmama payments
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexpert