Serena Williams helps African crypto giant, Nestcoin, raise US$6.45 million

• Nestcoin plans to use the funds accrued to build, educate and invest in web 3.0 applications
• The startup also intends to create a platform that will allow content creators to earn while educating the subscribers of Nestcoin
• Serena Williams invested in Nestcoin to drive crypto adoption in Africa

Crypto in Africa

Nestcoin, a Nigerian startup founded in November 2021, has raised US$6.45 million in a pre-seed funding round in which 23-title tennis star Serena Williams’ Serena Ventures took part.

Nestcoin plans to use the funds accrued to build, educate and invest in web 3.0 applications. Web 3.0 is the upcoming 3G of the internet. Websites and applications will process information in an intelligent human-like way through technologies like machine learning (ML, decentralized ledger technology (DLT), Big Data etc.

The startup also intends to use the capital raised to create a platform that will allow content creators to earn while educating the subscribers of Nestcoin.

Read: Users claim biggest Crypto exchange platform discriminating Africans

The companies that led the seed round were capital firms Distributed Global and Alter Global. Distributed Global invests mainly in blockchain companies, while Alter Global focuses on startups in emerging markets. Other firms that participated include Serena Ventures, Alameda Research, A&T Capital, MSA Capital, and 4DX Ventures.

Serena Williams invested in Nestcoin to drive crypto adoption in Africa as the Nigerian startup is building products to help Africans understand and adopt crypto. Yele Bademosi and Taiwo Orilogbon co-founded Nestcoin.

According to Chainalysis, Africa’s cryptocurrency market grew by 1,200%, to US$105.6 billion, between July 2020 and June 2021. High inflation rates, weak currencies, increased unemployment rates, and economic instability have supported the exponential growth of crypto in the continent.

Nestcoin founders abandon Bundle Africa for new startup

Yele Bademosi, former director of Binance Labs in Africa, said that he left Bundle for Nestcoin because it could not meet his goal of building a presence in several African countries. Bundle did become one of the well-known crypto exchange platforms in Africa, going live in two countries (Nigeria and Ghana), with less than 100,000 users. His goal was to build a presence in more than 30 African countries and have millions of users.

“The first iteration of crypto products was trading products. The second iteration has been more around decentralized finance and non-custodial trading of financing activities,” Bademosi explained. “The present-day situation of cryptocurrencies, and applications that everyday people use, for example, consumer applications, finance apps, entertainment, gaming, have the potential to reach millions of users across frontier markets. And that’s sort of what we are trying to do with Nestcoin.”

Nestcoin’s products cut across Decentralized Finance (DeFi), media, digital art and gaming. Last year, the company launched Breach, a media arm of Nestcoin, to create bite-sized and informative crypto content for the average African.

Breach seeks to highlight use cases of crypto as many Africans think it is only a savings and investment tool. Nestcoin’s media arm will produce informative and relatable content that will demystify crypto and create a deeper understanding of the technology within the market, making it easier for crypto-focused companies to flourish in a more receptive environment.

Read: Crypto market drops US$1 trillion despite growing popularity in Africa

In simple terms, Breach seeks to break down complex concepts in DeFi, blockchain, bitcoin, altcoinS, Decentralized Autonomous Organization [DAOs], Decentralized applications [DApps], among others, to the simple terms that anyone will understand.

A survey by Business Africa shows that 64 per cent of respondents in Kenya say they wouldn’t consider investing in crypto because they don’t understand enough about it, compared to the 56 per cent in South Africa and 55 per cent in Nigeria.

Davido launches a digital social token in the Binance Smart Chain network

Nestcoin has collaborated with crypto-exchange platform Bitsika to launch a social token ‘$ECHOKE’ for Davido, an international multi-award musician in Nigeria. “ECHOKE provides access to giveaways, NFTs, festivals, exclusive merchandise, and other entertainment, media, and hospitality benefits,” information from the whitepaper of the token reveals.

Nestcoin Sets up Metaverse Magna (MVM)

Nestcoin also set up Metaverse Magna, a gaming guild that introduces users to the world of play-to-earn crypto-powered games like Axie Infinity.

Sky Mavis developed the NFT-based online video game (Axie Infinity) was developed in 2020 by Sky Mavis and has been a sensation ever since. The downside is that the game is too expensive to play. The company says that MVM has bought Axies and lends it to players in its guild while employing a revenue-sharing agreement with them, enabling these users to earn up to US$1,000 per month.

Bademosi said MVM had received over 2,000 applications since its launch. However, only 400 gamers are currently live on the platform, a number he’s looking to increase to 1,000 before the first quarter of 2022.

Read: Africa is cryptocurrency-friendlier than you think