Adaverse, a Cardano ecosystem accelerator established to foster the growth of crypto-native projects in Africa, today announced its investment into a seed funding round for Cassava Network, a blockchain infrastructure that empowers African content creators, developers, and end-users through mutually aligned tasks and incentives. Over 40 investors, including Dragonfly, CMT Digital, YGG, Mirana, etc., participated in the recently closed investment round to implement the next phase of Cassava platform development.
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 on Cardano’s third-generation and environmentally-sustainable blockchain.
What is Cassava Network?
Cassava is a blockchain infrastructure that connects developers and users to the Web3 ecosystem. Through its native token CSV, Cassava transforms any web application into a crypto-enabled app suitable to reward contributors and end-users for their dedication. Their product offering consists of token rewards networks, digital identification systems, user-controlled data profiles, and a crypto and NFT wallet specifically designed to empower content creators.
As such, Cassava is a new incentives platform for Africans and the regional market, as CSV will enable projects, content creators including NFT artists, video creators, and content consumers to earn rewards in innovative ways through play-to-earn, create-to-earn, and engage-to-earn models. Additionally, it will offer CSV holders a portfolio of incentives, including lending, staking, AMM, and voting rights for platform governance.
Why Cassava Network?
Cassava offers a unique opportunity for African creatives to build digital economies, protect their intellectual properties and connect with the global market at large, through an easy-to-use multifunctional wallet that can be integrated with apps for user incentivization.
The market opportunity in the African creative space is enormous. Africa has one of the youngest and fastest-growing populations, as well as the highest proportion of entrepreneurs among its working-class adults. Cassava is designed for the innovative youth seeking pan-African connectivity, and a global reach that will translate into sustainable, income-generating opportunities.
With regards to the global blockchain market, Africa alone is expected to possess a 30% market share and grow from a $1.1 billion market in 2020 to a $134.9 billion market by 2028.
“EMURGO Africa is excited to support the development of Cassava Network’s innovative content rewards ecosystem. We firmly believe Africa is a huge market full of bright potential that can lead the way to spur large user growth and demonstrate the real benefits of a flourishing Web3 economy,”
said Shogo Ishida, Executive Director for the Middle East & Africa at EMURGO Africa
“We are very excited about this partnership, which will help fund the revolutionary DeFi tool, which enables mobile applications to migrate to web 3.0 functionality that rewards content creation and user engagement. We are inspired and driven by projects with a strong use case, a resilient founder, and a long term vision to bring change to socio-economic challenges in Africa,”
said Vincent Li Founding Partner at Adaverse
“Cassava Network will use the investment capital to expand and improve its technological capabilities in order to leverage the Web3 economy to drive crypto mass adoption across Africa and beyond. The next phase of Cassava development will include a multi-chain wallet that incentivizes users, an African-focused NFT Marketplace, and a rewards system that pays users for transacting and using apps in Cassava’s ecosystem,”
said The Cassava Network’s PR Director Kelin
About Adaverse
Adaverse is a Cardano-focused joint accelerator initiative — set up with the collaboration of EMURGO Africa, a subsidiary of EMURGO, the official commercial arm of the Cardano protocol, and Everest Ventures Group, a leading blockchain industry accelerator — looking to build the infrastructure of the projected $139.4 billion African blockchain market by 2028. Since its inception in 2021, Adaverse has invested in strategic partnerships with six (6) result-driven, fast-rising startups across Africa and seeks to onboard more into the accelerator program.
EMURGO Africa’s mission is to promote Cardano as the technical platform standard in Africa by fostering the growth of 300 socially impactful African startups through seed funding and incubation.
For more information on Cassava Network, please visit www.cassava.network.
To apply for funding at Adaverse, visit www.adaverse.co
