A new Cardano ecosystem investment vehicle has been established to fund both early-stage and growth-stage startups in Africa that are focused on using Cardano to develop solutions that are socially meaningful.
The announcement of the establishment of the investment vehicle was made by the official arm of Cardano blockchain, EMURGO.
Speaking on the development, Ken Kodama, CEO, EMURGO, said, “We are more focused than ever on accelerating the development of Cardano’s ecosystem with a rich mix of decentralized services catering to a global community that is increasing in overall blockchain awareness.
EMURGO is dedicated to meeting this demand by providing the capital and strategic resources necessary for our portfolio companies to scale rapidly and bring new solutions to Cardano.”
EMURGO Africa further announced that it will be collaborating with African venture capital firm, Adanian Labs, to promote impact-driven entrepreneurs as the Cardano ecosystem expands throughout Africa.
It will also collaborate with Cardano-focused joint accelerator program in Africa, Adaverse, with major blockchain industry accelerator, Everest Ventures.
Speaking on the positive impact of the partnerships, Charles Hoskinson, CEO, IOHK, said, “EMURGO’s investments will help to shape the future of the Cardano ecosystem, a maturing network with a creative and diverse community, growing smart contract capabilities and partnerships across the globe that provide social and financial services utilizing Cardano’s provably-secure technology.”
Takeaways
The fusion of smart contracts with Cardano’s blockchain is now ready to drive widespread innovation of decentralized service, and this new investment vehicle by EMURGO will help this initiative through EMURGO Africa and EMURGO Ventures.
This investment vehicle will be independently run by EMURGO Africa and EMURGO Ventures, both of which will have their own investment portfolio and will be fully owned subsidiaries of EMURGO, one of Cardano’s founding members.
EMURGO Africa and EMURGO Ventures will support the Cardano ecosystem by using EMURGO’s global network of industry partners and wide experience in blockchain solutions deployment to strategically fund their portfolio.
EMURGO Ventures has announced its first seed investment in a dcSpark sidechain project, Milkomeda, that will use wrapped ADA (wADA) as an asset to connect Cardano and other Layer 1 blockchain protocols.
EMURGO Ventures has a set capital allocation for seed investments into different middleware solutions companies and Cardano-focused startups, including the ones that are building non-fungible token (NFT) projects, decentralized financial services (DeFi), blockchain developer education tools, and other decentralized services. It will, therefore, look to other developed markets make the building of solutions and services on Cardano possible.
EMURGO Africa is concerned with providing seed finance and incubation to more than 300 regional entrepreneurs for them to have Cardano’s blockchain set as the technological platform standard in the continent for socially impactful solutions.
EMURGO has made more than direct investments in blockchain businesses via its former cooperation with SOSV, including API3 which is a data service provider for blockchains that has attracted investment from prominent blockchain funds.
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