Swiss Investor Pours New Funds Into Egyptian Blockchain Startup, Pravica

CV VC has made a direct investment in Pravica, an Egypt-based breakthrough communication platform that uses Blockchain technology to empower user privacy and security (Crypto Valley Venture Capital). 

CV VC announced their investment in Pravica ahead of the Stacks Accelerator first cohort demo day, when Pravica was one of twenty-five selected start-ups.

Olaf Hannemann, Co-Founder & CIO of CV VC
Olaf Hannemann, Co-Founder & CIO of CV VC

“We are reinventing digital communication protocols by utilizing Stacks Blockchain and its smart contracts to engineer a tamper-proof decentralized identity that is secured by the Bitcoin network and a fully decentralized storage system”, said Mohamed Abdou, Pravica Founder & CEO.

Pravica is now in a great position to scale up its operations and continue to develop its messaging app’s user base thanks to this recent funding.

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Why The Investor Invested

‘We are excited by the vision Pravica has developed towards taking a new approach to a highly practical communication suite with ultimate privacy and security standards, enabled by Blockchain technology,” Olaf Hannemann, Co-Founder & CIO of CV VC said. 

Pravica plans to onboard 5000+ organizations with an average of 500,000 users by the end of FY 2022.

Crypto Valley Venture Capital (CV VC) invests in teams that are using blockchain to revolutionize the industry.
Its investments are focused on worldwide teams that create solutions at the convergence of ‘Technology for Tomorrow’ (T4T) and six business verticals, one of which is Security & Identity.

This is, however, not the first time Swiss venture capital firm would be investing in an African blockchain startup. In 2019, the VC invested $75,000 in South Africa’s PocketJam for a 10% stake. However, the VC’s investments have always been made after blockchain startups have passed through its Labs Incubation Programme located in Zug, Switzerland. The venture capital firm has, however, recently launched its African operations in Cape Town, South Africa to focus exclusively on African blockchain/crypto startups.

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The CV VC office in South Africa would be established with the help of the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco). CV VC will use the office to search for and fund the top blockchain startups in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Congo, and other African countries. Each of the first five successful candidates will get $125,000 (CHF114,000) from the incubator, with Seco investing CHF250,000 in the first year of the project.

A Look At What Pravica Does

Founded in 2019, Pravica is beating the odds in the communication market, notably messaging apps for businesses, where some of the most popular communication apps around the world record massive amounts of data breaches.

The Pravica app is built on Blockchain and safeguarded by Bitcoin design, offering unrivaled privacy and security and revolutionizing the encrypted communication market.

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Pravica thinks that privacy is a fundamental human right, and that decentralizing systems will improve efficiency, security, and ecosystem trust. Pravica is going to change the way we live and interact with one another.

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