Pan-African Crypto Exchange Yellow Card Is Now Live In Côte d’Ivoire, Its 16th African Country

Chris Maurice, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Yellow Card

Yellow Card, a pan-African cryptocurrency exchange, is now open to Ivorians who want to purchase and trade cryptocurrencies. This would be the sixteenth African country to host the pan-African platform, following its original launch in Nigeria in 2018. Sylvio Contayon, the general manager of Yellow Card Côte d’Ivoire, believes that there are numerous chances to be exploited in this new industry, particularly in terms of becoming a market leader.

Chris Maurice, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Yellow Card
Chris Maurice, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Yellow Card

‘‘It is the fact that bitcoin is a fresh and untapped territory in the Ivorian market that intrigues us. We have the opportunity to establish ourselves as the market leader by introducing something novel and original to the market. As of 2018, there are an estimated 343,000 bitcoin holders in Côte d’Ivoire, according to Sylvio Contayon. If we do things correctly, we have the potential to grow the figures and monopolize the market,” he says.

With the launch of Yellow Card in Côte d’Ivoire, the company has completed a funding round that began in September of last year and included contributions from Blockchain.com Ventures as well as Polychain Capital, BlockFi, Fabric Ventures and Square Inc. The round was led by Valar Ventures, Third Prime, and Castle Island Ventures, and it took seven months to complete. The $15 million in Series A financing that the company received was meant to be used for the development of its team, the introduction of new goods, and the pursuit of its African expansion.

Read also Pan-African Crypto Firm Yellow Card Financial Expands To Senegal

Cryptocurrency is currently generating a lot of interest in Africa, where regulations are slowly becoming more accommodating. Africans got $105.6 billion in cryptocurrency payments between July 2020 and June 2021, according to blockchain analytics platform Chainalysis, despite the fact that the continent still only receives 2% of the total global value of all cryptocurrencies. In a single year, this is a 1,200 percent gain.

Yellow Card intends to carry out financial education activities in parallel with its trading activities in Côte d’Ivoire in order to ensure the success of its operations and the enthusiasm of the Ivorians who will be involved.

Read also Africa’s Transporters Adopt Cellulant’s Technology in Bid to Digitize the Sector

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://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh

Nigerian Cryptocurrency Startup Yellow Card Secures $1.5 million In Seed Funding Round

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

yellow card CEO Chris Maurice
yellow card CEO Chris Maurice

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.

Read also: Senegalese Waste Recycling Startup E-cover SAS Raises $382k From WIC Capital

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