Kategorie: Crypto Business

African crypto exchange Yellow Card raised $40 million in its Series B round led by Polychain Capital.

Yellow Card Financial, a Nigeria-based cryptocurrency exchange seeking to drive the next wave of crypto adoption across Africa, has successfully closed its $40 million Series B funding round, according to news the platform shared on Monday.

US-based investment firm Polychain Capital led the funding round, Yellow Card announced, with the capital injection adding to the Pan-African crypto startup’s Series A funding round completed in August 2021. At the time, the platform secured $15 million from investors and has now raised over $57 million to top the fundraising board for crypto companies across the continent.

For its latest financing round, Yellow Card attracted participation from Castle Island Ventures, Valar Ventures, Third Prime Ventures, DG Daiwa Ventures, Sozo Ventures, Fabric Ventures, The Raba Partnership, and Jon Weiner among others.

Driving crypto adoption in Africa

The funding will enable the company to drive exponential business growth, continue its successful expansion across the continent, develop new product innovations, and advance strategic partnerships across Africa.

According to Chris Maurice, co-founder and CEO of Yellow Card, the funding is a vote of confidence in the team and the product. It also highlights the massive appetite for crypto across the continent. 

The fundraising succeeded despite a crypto winter that has seen many crypto companies struggle, with many resorting to downsizing their headcount to keep financial books balanced.

“This fundraise in this market not only showcases the resilience of our team but also reiterates the appetite and necessity for cryptocurrency in Africa,” Maurice noted in a statement.

Polychain Capital partner Will Wolf sees Yellow Card as “the best executing team on the continent,” and believes what they have done is just the beginning of what’s possible towards greater crypto adoption in Africa.

“We are impressed by the way they seamlessly adjust and adapt to the unique opportunities and demands of the various African markets. We’ve barely touched the surface of what is possible when it comes to crypto in Africa, and we’re excited for what’s to come,” Wolf added.

Yellow Card launched in 2019 in Nigeria and is currently available across 21 countries,including Senegal, Gabon, Zambia, Kenya and Rwanda. The platform’s growth has seen it surpass 1 million customers in just three years as more people tap into its technology to invest in Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies.

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Zonda recently expanded into Italy and secured a regulatory nod to operate in Canada.

Zonda, a regulated cryptocurrency exchange registered in Estonia, has expanded its services to Denmark, according to a news release.

According to the company, its Danish office will be in Copenhagen, with a team of developers at the location working under Zonda CTO Jakob Lundqvist. 

The team will use the new location to advance Zonda’s technological ambitions and market tools as it caters to both retail and corporate clients.

Zonda eyes European expansion

Founded in 2014, the exchange is one of the largest in Eastern and Central Europe, currently serving over 1 million users and offering more than 60 cryptocurrencies.

Customers can buy or swap any of the supported coins and tokens with crypto (Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH)) and major fiat currencies Euro, the British Pound, the US dollar and the Polish Zloty (PLN). The exchange also supports stablecoins Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC).

The exchange also offers a retail-focused service via ZondaPay app and provides training and other educational services on crypto via its Zonda Academy.

The expansion into Denmark therefore opens the platform to further growth across the continent. Recently, the exchange expanded into the Italian market and is eyeing registration and licenses for the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

Beyond the continent, the company has regulatory approval to offer its services and products in Canada.

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Northzone has become the latest venture capital firm to enter the web3 ecosystem, setting up a fund to finance projects in the space. 

London-based venture capital firm Northzone announced on Tuesday, September 13th, that it has launched a €1 billion fund. The fund will focus on investing in cryptocurrency and fintech startups. 

Northzone has been around since 1996 and is a generalist investor. The VC firm has invested in numerous tech projects over the years, including fintech firms like open banking specialist TrueLayer,  buy now pay later giant Klarna, and music streaming platform Spotify. 

The firm has already invested in some crypto companies like Magic Labs, web3 privacy firm Sunscreen, and DeFi protocol Gro. Northzone is now looking to enter deeper into the crypto ecosystem with the launch of its new fund. 

Wendy Xiao Schadeck, a partner at Northzone, described web3 as a critical sector for the firm. She said Northzone began its crypto investment journey in July 2018, during the crypto winter. She added that;

“Web3 and web2 two will likely start to converge in this fund cycle’s lifetime. For instance, some of the web2 fintech companies in our last fund have launched tokens, and some of our gaming companies have decided to base their follow-on rounds from web3 VCs — so it’s really hard to say exactly where the delineation will be.”

The VC firm said it has the necessary infrastructure to support via both equity investments and token sales. Northzone added that it has participated in staking tokens previously.

Xiao further suggested that the VC firm would be open to investing in a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) under the right circumstances. The VC firm is yet to invest in nonfungible tokens (NFTs), but the firm said this latest fund could change all that. Xiao said;

“We consider new modes of investing that are aligned to what we do. But it’s not at a point where we say we’ll dedicate a portion of the funding to buy NFTs or anything like that. So far, we haven’t found that specifically, NFTs themselves are an investment case that fits our venture criteria.” 

Xiao added that the challenges within the DeFi ecosystem wouldn’t deter Northzone from further investing in the space. She concluded that;

“We would discuss and evaluate with our LPs to see if the time is right for that. I think what’s most likely to happen is that we’ll continue to invest into web3 companies out of our core funds and if they decide to launch tokens, we’ll hold them — we’re not at all limited in that way.”

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• Venture Capital arms of Kasikornbank PCL and Bank of Ayudhya PCL participated in Forward’s funding round.
• Forward is a digital assets platform focused on supporting innovation in the decentralised finance (DeFi) ecosystem.

Thai-based digital asset platform Forward has announced it successfully closed a $5 million seed round as it looks to promote innovation of the decentralised finance (DeFi) sector.

The startup, which also seeks to develop a decentralised derivatives exchange (DDEX), said on Monday that the financing round had only taken six months despite the economic uncertainty and crypto bear market.  

Thai banks back DeFi platform

According to the Forward team, Global venture capital fund RPVAF-1, under Primestreet Capital, led the round – with participation from two of Thailand’s leading banks: Bank of Ayudhya PCL and Kasikornbank PCL.

The two lenders backed the crypto startup via their respective venture capital arms namely Krungsri Finnovate and Beacon Venture Capital. Meanwhile, GBV Capital, Ratanakorn Technology Group and Varys Capital also joined the investment, Forward noted in the press release.

The involvement of the banks makes Forward the first DeFi project in the world to secure funding from two leading Thai banking institutions and major global funds, Chanon Charatsuttikul, co-founder and CEO of Forward observed in a statement.

He believes the capital injection is down to the confidence of investors in Thailand as a potential centre of innovation. 

“The closing of this seed round, for me, is the beginning of a big challenge for the team to maximise our potential and grow the organisation, and help make Thailand stand out as a country of innovation, just like western countries,” he noted.

As part of the innovation, Forward is working on a new protocol design for DDEX trading, which will use advanced technology dubbed Automated Position Hedge (APH) to match short and long positions. The matching of perpetual futures orders will be instant, with the DDEX acting as the counterparty, removing the need for limit order books and market makers.

Lending and borrowing pool tokens will allow for complete hedging of risk in view of the DDEX acting as a counterparty.

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In its most recent SEC filing, business intelligence software company MicroStrategy has revealed its intention to buy more Bitcoin, Bloomberg reported yesterday. With over 129,000 BTC in its possession, MicroStrategy is already the largest corporate shareholder of Bitcoin.

The prospectus, filed on Friday, stated that MicroStrategy has entered into an agreement to sell $500 million in shares of Class A common stock to investment bank Cowen & Co.

Despite the uncertainties and fluctuations in the Bitcoin market, the firm intends to continue to pursue its goal of acquiring more BTC:

“We intend to use the net proceeds from the sale of any class A common stock offered under this prospectus for general corporate purposes, including the acquisition of bitcoin, unless otherwise indicated in the applicable prospectus supplement.”

While no specific date was provided for the sale, the firm also added that it aims to retain future earnings for either the purchase of additional Bitcoin or the development of the software business.

As recently shown by Bitcoin Treasuries data, MicroStrategy’s BTC reserve has dipped to nearly $2.8 billion. This could be a motivator for the firm’s intentions to buy the dip.

Bitcoin traded below $20,000 last week, a steep decrease from its all-time high of $68,789 in November 2021. Further wild fluctuations in the price of Bitcoin could impact its decision on future holdings, the firm explained:

“Future fluctuations in Bitcoin trading prices may result in our converting Bitcoin purchased with the net proceeds from this offering into cash with a value substantially below the net proceeds from this offering”

The company further stated that it may sell Bitcoin to generate cash for “treasury management and other general corporate purposes.” However, it has no plans to trade derivative contracts with its holding. The firm will continue to monitor market conditions to determine its further steps.

In August, MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor stepped down from his position as CEO to focus on his advocacy efforts on Bitcoin holding.  

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