Yellow Card, the Nigerian cryptocurrency startup which aims to make it easier for consumers in Africa to buy and sell cryptocurrency — has announced a $1.5 million seed round.

“We’re excited to announce the close of our funding round of $1.5m USD through the @CeloOrg Ecosystem Fund led by @polychain. This money will help us bring Bitcoin to every part of Africa! Thank you all for your support on our journey to make Bitcoin accessible to everyone!” The startup announced on its Twitter handle. 

Here Is What You Need To Know

• Investors in the new round include Polychain, Andreessen Horowitz, and Celo, through Celo Ecosystem Fund. 
• Yellow Card said it will use the funding to expand its cryptocurrency operations and “become the dominant exchange across the continent,” Chris Maurice, CEO said.
• Yellow Card has also announced the hiring of former senior director of payment services at Walmart, Jason Marshall, as the startup’s chief operating officer.

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Why The Investors Invested

Leading Yellow Card’s latest investment is a team of high-profile investors. Having VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (also called a16z) on the investment round is highly remarkable. The VC is one of US’ largest private venture capital firms. It has previously invested in Skype, Facebook, Twitter, AirBnB, Ripple (blockchain-based), Github, CryptoKitties (blockchain-based), and a host of other high-tech companies.

“We’re excited about the ways in which crypto can help modernize Africa’s financial infrastructure and better serve its peoples. Yellow Card’s mobile-first, cryptocurrency-enabled suite of products allows users to transfer value, store value, or remit value at significantly lower costs and with higher speed and better security than incumbent, legacy services provide,” Olaf Carlson-Wee, CEO, PolyChain Capital, said. 

Having a team with strong experience in cryptocurrencies must have also influenced the funding. 

In any case, it makes sense that all three investors would be investing together, at a time, as the Celo Ecosystem Venture Fund is a Polychain-led venture, supported by founding investors Andreessen Horowitz and Celo, with the goal of investing in and developing the Celo ecosystem. The Celo fund aims to foster Celo’s mission of creating a more accessible monetary system by making strategic, seed-stage deployments into tools and services which will leverage Celo’s protocol to build new financial infrastructure in the developing world.

A Look At What The Startup Does

Founded in 2016 by Chris Maurice and Justin Poiroux, Yellow Card started with an intent to create a Bitcoin gift card. Then, in 2018, Chris and Justin met a man at a Wells Fargo who was trying to send $200 dollars to his family in Nigeria. The bank charged him $90. They teamed up with Munachi Ogueke to undertake the mission of bringing Bitcoin to Africa with the objective of “basic financial services for all” and have since taken Nigeria by storm with 35,000+ merchants and over $35 million dollars in transactions.

The company said it recently expanded into South Africa and Botswana and added 30,000 new vendors. Starting September 1, the service will also launch in Kenya and Cameroon, according to a statement.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer