CV VC Firm Launches Early-Stage Fund Targeting African Blockchain Startups
Crypto Valley Venture Capital (CV VC) has today announced the launch of its African Blockchain Early-Stage Fund targeting blockchain startups from across Africa.
The Switzerland-headquartered, private venture capital company which offers seed funding and an incubation program to global tech teams in exchange for equity has also published its inaugural African Blockchain Report.
The report published in collaboration with Standard Bank highlights that obstacles to global transformations seem surmountable when seeing Africa's urgent actions to utilize blockchain becoming the norm. The report shows in detail how Africa has self-accelerated blockchain as a transformative force for society and the economy and how pioneers continue to reinforce the need for more unified action on regulation and infrastructure. It provides a compelling structural overview of the emerging blockchain sector and rousing insights regarding its funding. It highlights that blockchain funding far outpaced all other sectors, eleven times. The findings demonstrate how nations and stakeholder capitalists are beginning to step in and embrace Africa's self-determining participation in the fourth industrial revolution.
While it is a fact that African nations are amongst the fastest crypto adopters globally, today's CV VC report moves past crypto. It looks at the underlying revolutionary blockchain movement, set to enable Africa to transact and interact for the well-being of its people and economies.
“While actively participating in Africa, we are amazed and humbled by the determination of the brilliant founders who are changing the future not just for their industries and nation but for the world. In Africa, there is a mindset that complements Switzerland's determination and a will to create well-being for its citizens and the future of humanity. As the world enters the decade of the fourth industrial revolution, building on blockchain as a transformative tech, it is worth recanting the main theme of this year's WEF, ‘Working Together and Restoring Trust’. This is what CV VC intends to do with other drivers in Africa,” says Mathias Ruch, Co-Founder of CV VC.
CV VC as an initiator of Crypto Valley - the world's most mature blockchain hub, with an enviable regulatory landscape and 14 blockchain Unicorns, intends to lend its renowned expertise to enable Africa, the world's second-largest continent in both size and population to achieve its true potential. As a blockchain investor and builder of international startup ecosystems, CV VC says it commits to investing in the broader applicability of blockchain to solving problems and creating new markets beyond crypto.
Its public-private partnership with the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), intends to see it build the first-ever, blockchain-focused Accelerator for Africa. The goal of this Accelerator is to invest in 100 blockchain startups from the African continent over the next 4 years. To date, CV VC has invested in 12 startups where blockchain use cases go far beyond cryptocurrencies to drive Africa's future. CV VC intends that it will continue as a leading enabler, through the launch of its African Blockchain Early Stage Fund.
The inaugural African Blockchain Report highlights that obstacles to global transformations seem surmountable when seeing Africa's urgent actions to utilize blockchain becoming the norm. The report shows in detail how Africa has self-accelerated blockchain as a transformative force for society and the economy and how pioneers continue to reinforce the need for more unified action on regulation and infrastructure.
Ian Putter, Head, Blockchain CoE&CA Training Office at Standard Bank Group says African economies are in danger of even further marginalization due to macro trends towards economic deglobalization. The silver lining, he says has been the self-fast-tracking of Africa’s digital and tech economy. This has already bolstered resilience as a road map to how and why the world needs to embrace blockchain as a transformative technology.
''Standard Bank has been a pioneer in leveraging blockchain to bring speed and transparency to our customer base across Africa. We are very excited to work with CV VC as a blockchain ambassador to enable the further emergence of blockchain, as a resource on which Africa can build and outreach globally”. he concluded.
The African Blockchain Report is available for download here.
