African Yellow Card cryptocurrency exchange has closed a $15 million Serie A fundraising round sponsored by some of blockchain’s largest venture capital firms.
Yellow Card announced Monday that the campaign, which was characterized as the largest ever by any African cryptocurrency exchange, will allow the company to extend its operations across Africa and onboard fresh talent. Yellow Card raised $1.5 million in a Series A round about a year after raising $1.5 million from a variety of investors.
Valar Ventures, Third Price, and Castle Island Ventures led the round, with Square, Inc., Blockchain.com Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, BlockFi, MoonPay, and others joining in.
Yellow Pay began operating in Nigeria in 2018 before extending across the continent. Although the company’s headquarters are currently located in Atlanta, Georgia, the company’s primary focus appears to be on developing a pan-African cryptocurrency network.
Africa continues to be a major source of cryptocurrency market growth, as people devise new ways to resist inflation, restrictive foreign exchange rules, and capital controls.
Following the central bank’s decision to limit remittances in the local naira currency, peer-to-peer trading platforms such as Paxful have seen substantial development in Nigeria.
According to Cointelegraph, Nigerian crypto exchange Quidax reported more than $3.2 billion in lifetime transactions in May, demonstrating the country’s growing embrace of cryptocurrencies.
Users in the so-called global south are increasingly viewing Bitcoin (BTC) as a vehicle for savings, remittances, and even transactions, in contrast to many advanced industrialized economies where crypto plays a key role as an investable asset class.
BTC use in Africa has increased by 1,200 percent in the last year, according to a new analysis from analytics firm Chainalysis.
