Adaverse Looks to Invest in 300 African Startups in the Next 3 Years

Adaverse, a Cardano Ecosystem Accelerator, has set itself an ambitious target to make investments in 300 blockchain startups across the continent within the next 3 years.

The venture entity for the Cardano blockchain revealed this at a Cardano Blockchain Founders Hangout held on November 23rd, 2022 in Nairobi Kenya.

At the event were senior officials directing Cardano’s efforts across the continent who mingled with founders and enthusiasts based in Kenya.

We had a great time following the first ever Kenyan @emurgo_io meetup with startups and founders in Kenya ????!@Cardanopic.twitter.com/d1YlyJ4uip

— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) November 24, 2022

The officials include:

Adaverse set up operations in Africa in 2021 and has invested in 25 companies in 2022. 5 startups are already in the pipeline, which will bring the total startups to 30 by the end of the year, according to William Phelps, the Investment Manager.

The 30 companies are drawn from several countries, including Nigeria and Zimbabwe, with conversations ongoing with more founders.

Adaverse’s aim is to invest in 30 startups by December 2022, meaning they are open to investing in about 5 more startups within the next week.

According to Founding Partner, Vincent Li, Adaverse mainly seeks startups using blockchain to solve real-world problems.

“We consider startups with a product and founders with blockchain knowledge and will support in scaling,” said Li.

The startups in consideration are at their early stage of development, at least with a proven idea that has some market traction, with about 2,000/3,000 product users, according to Li.

Adaverse’s fund is open to all projects, even those not building on Cardano. The expectation however is that they would be supported to grow their project on Cardano if they receive investment.

Ticket sizes range from $100k to $750k in exchange for equity or a token sale, which can be disbursed in fiat or crypto depending on how the parties agree.

In addition to funding, Adaverse says it brings its wealth of knowledge to support investees at various stages of developing and scaling their companies:

• Tokenization
• Technical consultancy
• Community/Content/Marketing
• Fundraising

For instance, under tokenization, Adaverse would provide experts from its network who’d collaborate with founders to figure out utilities that could be created with a token, and also assist in developing a whitepaper and a project road-map.

Startups stand to gain larger investments from the Cardano ecosystem further on in their venture building.