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Nigeria-launched Yellow Card is now Exchanging Crypto Across 12 African Countries

November 13, 2021

The Nigeria based cryptocurrency exchange Yellow Card which was launched in 2019 is now active in 12 African countries and planning further expansion after banking US$15 million in Series A capital in September. Yellow Card makes it easy for anyone, anywhere in Africa, to buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT Stablecoin using cash, mobile money, card, or bank transfer. The company claims to be “building a new financial infrastructure for the African continent”.

John Colson, Yellow Card’s chief marketing officer,

“Key to this is the fact that Yellow Card operates using a B2C model, rather than a P2P one. This means you buy and sell your Bitcoin to and from Yellow Card, rather than performing transactions with other investors,” John Colson, the startup’s chief marketing officer, was reported to have said.

“Yellow Card is formalising the informal market for digital assets while building a new continent-wide financial technology infrastructure.”

Initially operating in Nigeria, Yellow Card has scaled, and fast. It now offers over 160,000 customers in 12 countries the ability to buy, sell, invest and trade cryptocurrencies in their local currency, seeing a nearly 30X increase in users across Africa since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. For Colson, there is a clear reason why.

“Yellow Card is formalising the informal market for digital assets, previously much of the crypto trading was done in WhatsApp groups. By building a formal exchange we helped to create a better experience for crypto traders,” he said.

Further growth is now on the agenda after the company closed a US$15 million Series A round, the largest ever raised by an African crypto exchange, in September. The round, which was led by Valar Ventures, Third Prime, and Castle Island Ventures, will be used to help the company expand into further countries. Its list of current active African markets includes Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Cameroon, Botswana, Tanzania, Rwanda and Zambia.

“Launching in multiple countries is no easy feat, however, our great operations team works very hard to ensure our launches go smoothly,” said Colson.

“We have seen massive growth in the markets we have entered; there is a real demand for crypto in Africa.”

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Nigerian Crypto Exchange Yellow Card Raises $15m Series A funding

September 29, 2021

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

Yellow Card, the Nigerian cryptocurrency exchange has raised US$15 million in Series A funding to ramp up hiring and continue its expansion across the continent with the aim to make it easy for anyone, anywhere in Africa, to buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT Stablecoin using cash, mobile money, card, or bank transfer.

The company now has a presence in 12 African countries, and has seen a nearly 30X increase in users across Africa since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its Series A funding round is for further expansion and to expand its team, which is already 110-strong.

The US$15 million round was led by Valar Ventures, Third Prime, and Castle Island Ventures, with participation from Square, Blockchain.com Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, BlockFi, Fabric Ventures, Raba Partnership, MoonPay, GreenHouse Capital, and more.

“Our mission has always been to make cryptocurrency accessible anywhere and everywhere across the African continent. Now, we have the backing to make that a reality, alongside an amazing team of investors who share our vision,” said Chris Maurice, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Yellow Card.

Valar Ventures’ James Fitzgerald said Africa was poised to benefit tremendously from cryptocurrency’s potential to transform financial services.

“We believe in Yellow Card’s vision of a pan-African cryptocurrency platform. What cemented the deal is their multi-national team, which we believe has the local knowledge, technical expertise, and unequivocal passion to address the basic financial services needs of the continent,” he said.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

A Big Bet On Cryptocurrency In Africa As Yellow Card Raises $15m Funding Round

September 28, 2021

Yellow Card, a Pan-African bitcoin exchange with operations in 12 countries throughout the continent, has secured Series A round of funding led by Valar Ventures, Third Prime, and Castle Island Ventures. This is the continent’s largest funding for a B2C crypto exchange. Square, Coinbase Ventures, and Blockchain.com Ventures were among the investors in the round. Third Prime was appointed to the crypto company’s board of directors as a result of the latest investment.

“This raise is a validation that Africa has a major place in the crypto industry,” said Yellow Card’s Chief Bitcoin Officer, Munachi Ogueke. “With the access that Yellow Card brings, powered by this raise, we can now let crypto proliferate and be a reliable enabler for people across the continent.”

The new $15 million capital will be used to expand the crypto exchange’s personnel, develop new products, and expand into more African countries.

Yellow Card exchange — *The team at Yellow Card. Image credits: Yellow Card*

Why The Investors Invested

The investors in this round have a lot of faith in Yellow Card since, while being a cryptocurrency company, it has also received regulatory licenses from regulators. However, following the Central Bank of Nigeria’s decision to prohibit financial institutions in the country from interacting with crypto exchanges, its operations in Nigeria, which it paired with an agency banking model, were terminated.

“Yellow Card has licensing that allows us to operate in six countries, and we’re hoping to add another one very soon,” said Chris Maurice, Yellow Card’s CEO. “On top of that, we are also registered with the financial intelligence authority, financial conduct authority or any other applicable government bodies for things like anti-money laundering reporting.”

For Valar Ventures, crypto is the future of finance in Africa.

“Many African countries adopted mobile phones without ever distributing landlines at scale, and many African countries adopted mobile payments without ever distributing credit and debit cards at scale,” said James Fitzgerald, a founding partner at Valar Ventures said. “We see a similar opportunity for crypto; it can enable Africans to leapfrog an entire generation of financial services technology.”

Jack Dorsey, whose company Square also invested in this round, has long been a proponent of bitcoin, with his companies Twitter and Square actively incorporating the cryptocurrency into their platforms. On September 23, Twitter revealed that users can now tip their favorite creators with bitcoin. In 2019, Dorsey traveled to a few African countries, where he learnt more about the continent’s burgeoning digital environment. “Africa will define the future (especially the bitcoin one!)” he tweeted at the end of his African visit.

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 as at 2020.

Yellow Card launched in Nigeria in 2019 using the original bitcoin gift card model. It eventually shifted to a crypto-based agency banking firm, which could have been great for the man who sent $200 home. The distribution of vital financial services to customers through a network of third-party agents, known as agency banking or agent banking, has been critical in the quest for financial inclusion in Nigeria and many other African countries.

Looking ahead, the company’s ultimate goal is to become a crypto service that allows Africans to send remittances, make payments, and preserve the value of their wealth from the constant depreciation of their currencies in many African countries. This is something that a lot of cryptocurrency sites already do. Yellow Card, on the other hand, seeks to set itself apart by developing products that do not require consumers to be crypto experts.

Yellow Card exchange Yellow Card exchange

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

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

“Yellow Card” Plans to Transform Kenya’s Crypto Market

June 17, 2021

Yellow Card has promised to change the way crypto is traded across Africa with its latest move into Kenya. Being one of Africa’s leading finance platforms for trading cryptocurrencies, Yellow Card has birthed in Kenya, making it the 10^th African country it has operations. Yellow Card allows customers from Nigeria, Botswana, Cameroon and South Africa, and others, to buy and sell crypto through its platform as it gives people the opportunity to buy or sell supported cryptocurrencies with their local currencies.

The company took off in 2016 in Lagos, Nigeria and has expanded through partnership with local merchants in other African countries to accelerate digital payments and e-commerce through crypto trading.

It also extends its partnership to local vendors, and convenience stores to sell their vouchers and once the customer purchases the voucher, they redeem it for cryptocurrency through a mobile platform and they can even send money to their family or buy whatever they may need online, allowing even bankless individuals to participate in e-commerce.

The company “offers a secure cryptocurrency wallet with which you send, receive, and store your cryptocurrencies. You gain access to your personal crypto wallets once you sign up for a Yellow Card account.”

The platform will automatically create users a virtual wallet for every type of crypto they wish to deal in.

“You can receive cryptocurrency into these wallets when other Yellow Card users send you tokens or from external wallets.”

For Kenyan users, there are 3 types of cryptocurrency that can be traded on Yellow Card. These are namely Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether. All of which can be traded without any hidden fees, the company says.

At the top of its list of priorities, Yellow Card is focused on the security of its customers’ funds and e-wallets. The platform uses a distributed security system built from the ground up that specialises in its particular trading scheme.

The system is streamlined for both customers and agencies, using multi-sig wallets to ensure user funds are airtight. Analysts say that Yellow Card’s platform is built to allow everyone access to finances and crypto. It runs on the mission “Financial inclusion for all.”

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry