Today, Adaverse, a Cardano ecosystem accelerator building its most robust foundation across Africa, announced investment funding into Afriex, an African fintech startup facilitating cross-border payment remittance on a blockchain-based platform. Afriex recently concluded a successful Series A funding round which aggregated prime investment firms including Adaverse, Sequoia Capital China, Dragonfly Capital, Goldentree, Stellar Foundation, and Exceptional Capital.
Adaverse was launched in September 2021 as a joint venture partnership between EMURGO Africa and Everest Ventures, to identify and provide valuable support resources to promising African founders building the next wave of Web3 dApps in DeFi, NFTs, gaming, and metaverse tools.
What is Afriex?
Afriex is a crypto bank for payment remittance, utilizing stablecoins to provide cheaper and fast international payments for Africans. Through its payment App, instant money transfers are completed between users in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, the United States, and Canada. Afriex caters to business enterprises, and individuals, including the underbanked with a simple interface where quick, affordable global remittances are made without the delay and hassles associated with traditional payment channels.
Afriex is a multi-asset crypto wallet that facilitates both fiat and crypto transactions between users. Transactions on the platform are supported by USDC, the stablecoin that enables USD-based transactions across Sub-Saharan African countries. With the Afriex card, cash can be transferred to bank accounts quickly and at an advantageous exchange rate.
Why Afriex?
Using Web 3.0 technologies, Afriex responds to the growing FX shortage required for cross-border remittances in Sub-Saharan Africa. Due to the high cost of payment remittance that is gradually eroding purchasing power, Afriex aims to mitigate the constantly devaluing currencies which make savings difficult for Africans, by leveraging a stable cryptocurrency that will serve the emerging markets.
Afriex broke into the remittance market in 2019 amidst many traditional payment apps riddled with slower processing time and high transaction fees. Since its launch, Afriex has expanded to five (5) countries with over 40,000 users. The payment app processes more than $5 million in monthly transfers and has grown its customer base by 500% in the last six months with the majority of its active customers accessing the site more than once each week.
“We are building this Web3 mesh of financial institutions that could almost become something like the next Visa. Our immediate goal is to become the primary financial partner for over 1.5 billion people in the African diaspora,” said Afriex CEO and co-founder Tope Alabi.
Web3 technology is gradually transforming the emerging African market into a digitally powered landscape that would rival established global economies in the coming decades. The rise of e-commerce, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, is projected to increase in the next five years, and there is an urgent need for sustainable and dependable remittance channels within African countries and overseas.
“Through the Adaverse accelerator, EMURGO Africa is excited to support Afriex’s vision to provide more accessible financial services to a greater segment of the local region through Web3 technologies. There is much potential for the expansion of Web3 services in the years to come, especially in Africa, to empower and provide more inclusive opportunities for everyone,” said Shogo Ishida, co-CEO for the Middle East & Africa at EMURGO Africa.
“Afriex has created a bridge for emerging African markets by leveraging blockchain technology to offer stability and ease for the global payment remittances. This is very commendable and the growth trajectory is impressive. With a team focused to improve opportunities for wealth creation in Africa, Afriex is more than a payment app, it is the future of global remittances,” said Vincent Li, Founding Partner at Adaverse.
About Adaverse
Adaverse is an early-stage investor and accelerator, facilitating the growth of African blockchain startups up to Series A with the backing of Cardano’s official commercial arm’s investment subsidiary – EMURGO Africa and Everest Ventures Group. Set up in 2021, Adaverse has made strategic investments in six (6) crypto-native solutions building across a suite of Web3 products such as DeFi, Gaming, NFT, Exchange, and Proptech in Africa.
EMURGO Africa’s mission is to promote Cardano as the technical platform standard in Africa by fostering the growth of more than 300 socially impactful African startups through seed funding and incubation.
For more information on Afriex, please visit www.afriexapp.com
To apply for funding at Adaverse, please visit www.adaverse.co
