The US and Africa-based blockchain funds startup Bitmama has raised an extra $1.65 million in funding, bringing its complete pre-seed spherical to $2 million.
Bitmama’s preliminary $350,000 pre-seed was raised in October 2021 and included traders Unicorn Development Capital, Launch Africa Ventures, Adaverse and Flori Ventures.
The brand new spherical contains traders from the preliminary pre-seed spherical in addition to new traders together with Tekedia Capital, GreenHouse Capital, ODBA, Five35 Ventures, Chrysalis Capital, Enrich Africa, Thrive Africa, Angellist Ventures, and angel traders together with CELO founders: Rene Reinsberg, and Marek Olszewski, and Honey Ogundeyi.
In response to an announcement shared with TechCabal, the brand new pre-seed spherical will probably be used to increase the corporate’s operational presence, strengthen its staff throughout completely different markets, consolidate its product choices, and plot market penetration throughout Africa. With this enlargement, it seeks to quickly scale new use instances for cryptocurrency throughout the continent.
At present current in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, Bitmama permits its customers to commerce a number of cryptocurrencies, use their debit playing cards for normal on-line funds, pay utilities and carry out transactions reminiscent of staking to hedge in opposition to forex devaluation.
The startup’s main merchandise are the Bitmama change, which permits customers to entry digital belongings and discover a number of cryptocurrency use instances, and Changera, a social cost resolution that enables non-crypto-savvy clients to make use of their cash with out limits from wherever on the earth.
Talking on the funding spherical, Ruth Iselema, founder and CEO of Bitmama, acknowledged that each merchandise are approaching 100,000 customers throughout the African market and recording spectacular each day energetic customers.
“We’re constructing Africa’s most user-friendly, revolutionary blockchain firm, and we’re glad to have the backing of seasoned traders and companions who’ve walked comparable turfs. We’re privileged to study from their blended experiences throughout company and blockchain enterprise verticals,” she added.
For Five35 Ventures, founding companion Hema Vallabh acknowledged: “Being a number one female-focused VC fund, we at Five35 Ventures look ahead to serving to Ruth and her dynamic staff scale Bitmama, particularly seeing the expansion of Changera, the remittance platform that enables all Africans to transact internationally at less expensive charges than established remittance corporations out there.”