Yellow Card lands $40M Series B to drive crypto adoption in Africa

Pan-African Crypto Exchange Yellow Card has closed its $40 million Series B funding in a round led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Valar Ventures, Third Prime, Sozo Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Fabric Ventures, DG Daiwa Ventures, The Raba Partnership.

"For the past three years, our team has worked tirelessly to make this technology accessible to anyone and create a world-class product. This fundraise, in the current market environment, not only showcases the resilience of our team, but also clearly demonstrates the appetite and necessity for cryptocurrency in Africa," Chris Maurice, CEO and co-founder of Yellow Card said in a statement seen by Benjamindada.com.

Founded in 2019, the crypto exchange enables the accessibility of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Stablecoins, and other cryptocurrencies on the continent. Yellow Card will leverage the funding to drive exponential business growth, continue its successful expansion across the continent, develop new product innovations, and advance strategic partnerships across Africa.

As of September 2021, the crypto exchange company raised a $15 million Series A led by Valar Ventures, Third Prime, and Castle Island Ventures. The company is currently available in Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia, Uganda, Gabon, Malawi, Senegal, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Yellow Card also announced that it surpassed one million customers across the aforementioned in March 2022. According to Will Wolf, Partner at Polychain Capital, " We are impressed by the way [Yellow Card] seamlessly adjusts and adapts to the unique opportunities and demands of the various African markets. We’ve barely touched the surface of what is possible when it comes to crypto in Africa, and we're excited for what's to come."

Crypto adoption in Africa

With the recent funding, the crypto exchange company has joined other African tech startups including Nestcoin, Metaverse Magna that have recently raised venture capital to drive crypto adoption in Africa. Within H1 2022, African Crypto and Web3 startups jointly raised $134 million, according to the BD Funding Tracker.

So far, the African cryptocurrency market is the third-fastest growing crypto market in the world. Six countries on the continent—Kenya, Nigeria, Togo, South Africa, Ghana and Tanzania—gained spots on the 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index Top 20 list.

Despite this growth, African governments have not looked kindly at cryptocurrencies—except for the Central African Republic which adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender—the Nigerian Central Bank cut off crypto exchanges from banking services.

Related Article: Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission's stance on crypto

According to CoinGecko, Nigeria is the most cryptocurrency-obsessed country in the world as of August 2022. With a total search score of 371, Nigeria topped the list for the highest search levels for the phrases ‘cryptocurrency’, ‘invest in crypto’ and ‘buy crypto’ worldwide. Additionally, the population of Nigeria search for the cryptocurrency ‘Solana’ the third most worldwide.