Grace Ashiru
Bitmama, a blockchain payments firm with operations in the United States and Africa, has raised an additional $1.65 million in funding, increasing the total amount it has raised in its pre-seed round to $2 million.
Bitmama collected the preliminary pre-seed funding of $350,000 in October 2021 from a group of investors that includes Unicorn Growth Capital, Launch Africa Ventures, Adverse, and Flori Ventures.
Investors who participated in the initial pre-seed round are also participating in this new round alongside new investors such as Tekedia Capital, GreenHouse Capital, ODBA, Five35 Ventures, Chrysalis Capital, Enrich Africa, Thrive, Africa, Angellist Ventures, and angel investors such as CELO founders Rene Reinsberg, Marek Olszewski, and Honey Ogundeyi.
According to a statement provided to TechCabal, the new pre-seed round of funding will be put toward expanding the company’s operational footprint, strengthening its staff across multiple markets, consolidating its product offerings, and plotting market penetration across Africa. It wants to quickly scale up new ways to use cryptocurrency on the continent with this expansion.
Bitmama is currently available in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya. Its users can trade several cryptocurrencies, use their debit cards to make regular online payments, pay bills, and do things like “staking” to protect themselves against a currency’s value going down.
The startup’s main products are the Bitmama exchange, which gives users access to virtual assets and lets them try out different ways to use cryptocurrencies, and Changer. This social payment solution enables people who don’t know much about cryptocurrencies use their money from anywhere in the world without limits.
Ruth Iselema, the founder and CEO of Bitmama, said about the funding round that both products are getting close to 100,000 users on the African market and have a lot of daily active users.
We are pleased to have the support of seasoned investors and partners that have been in a similar position as we construct Africa’s most user-friendly and creative blockchain enterprise. She further said, “we are honored to learn from their combined expertise across a variety of industry verticals, including corporate and blockchain.”
Hema Vallabh, the founder partner of Five35 Ventures, is quoted in the following: Five35 Ventures, a prominent female-focused venture capital firm, is looking forward to assisting Ruth and her vibrant team in expanding Bitmama.
In particular, we are excited to see the development of Changer. The platform for remittances enables all people living in Africa to conduct business on an international scale at rates that are significantly lower than those offered by established remittance organizations in the market.
