Pan-African Crypto Startup, Yellow Card, raises $15m for expansion across Africa

Pan-African Crypto exchange, Yellow Card, announced it has raised $15 million in Series A funding to grow its team, introduce new products and continue its expansion across the continent. Said to be the largest funding raise by an African Crypto exchange, it was led by Valar Ventures, Third Prime, and Castle Island Ventures with participation from Jack Dorsey’s Square, Inc., Blockchain.com Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, BlockFi, Fabric Ventures, Raba Partnership, MoonPay, GreenHouse Capital, and more.

Yellow Card enables Africans at home and abroad to buy and sell cryptocurrency using their local currency via bank transfer, cash, and mobile money. It enables anyone on the continent to buy, sell, spend, and store  Bitcoin, Ethereum, or USDT to solve basic financial service issues.

Yellow card started with the original bitcoin gift card model but later pivoted into a crypto-based agency banking business. In December 2020, it announced that it had processed over $165 million in volume during the first eleven months of 2020.

According to the CEO Chris Maurice, “Our mission has always been to make cryptocurrency accessible anywhere and everywhere across the African continent. Now, we have the backing to make that a reality, alongside an amazing team of investors who share our vision.”

Yellow Card is currently present in 12 countries such as Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Botswana, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia, Uganda, Gabon and Malawi, and has 110 employees across 16 countries. The company stated that it has witnessed nearly a 30X increase in users across Africa since the start of the Pandemic.

“Africa is poised to benefit tremendously from cryptocurrency’s potential to transform financial services,” Valar Ventures’ James Fitzgerald said. “We believe in Yellow Card’s vision of a Pan-African cryptocurrency platform. What cemented the deal is their multi-national team, which we believe has the local knowledge, technical expertise, and unequivocal passion to address the basic financial services needs of the continent.”

“This raise is a validation that Africa has a major place in the crypto industry,” said Yellow Card’s Chief Bitcoin Officer, Munachi Ogueke. “With the access that Yellow Card brings, powered by this raise, we can now let crypto proliferate and be a reliable enabler for people across the continent.”