Jambo’s $30M Series A Led By Paradigm to Fulfill Africa’s Web3 Potential
Impactful investors including Paradigm join as our on-the-ground operations achieve milestones
By James Zhang, CEO and Co-Founder, Jambo
Growing up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, my sister and co-founder Alice and I witnessed firsthand the continent’s potential for economic innovation and prosperity. Coming from a family committed to investing in Africa’s success for over three generations, we are dedicated to helping more Africans achieve financial well-being.
We started Jambo last year with the mission to onboard the next million (and potentially billion) African people to Web3. As blockchain and fintech enthusiasts ourselves, we’re bullish on Web3’s potential to bring prosperity to every corner of Africa, where we are seeing the youthful, educated, and smartphone-savvy population already embracing crypto at a rapid clip — Africa’s crypto market grew 1200% in value in the past year alone. Equipping the continent with the correct tools to better harness this disruptive technology, however, is no simple task.
Given Africa’s vast size and diversity, widespread adoption of Web3 must be organic with people across the continent’s regions and countries embracing the technology on their own terms. That’s why the key to Web3 proliferation in Africa is access to on-the-ground education. One city at a time, we’re building local grassroots networks of ambassadors that cater our educational programs to each community, and we’ve reached some exciting milestones over the last couple of months, including:
- Opening Jambo offices across the continent for our on-the-ground operations.
- Partnering with thousands of internet cafes and college booths to provide Web3 students access to computers and high speed internet.
- Garnering interest from thousands of people in Africa to test and use the Jambo Web3 super app that we’re building.
And we’re not slowing down — there is much more work to be done if we’re going to achieve our mission and help Africa seize this moment.
To that end, we’re excited to announce that we recently closed our $30M Series A funding round led by Paradigm, a firm known for backing disruptive crypto and Web3 companies and protocols. Paradigm has been a fierce supporter of the work we’ve done to date and will be a great partner in helping us achieve our ambitious goals for the future.
As Paradigm’s first investment in Africa, we couldn’t be more excited to partner with the Jambo team in this next phase of growth. We see massive Web3 potential in Africa and it’s clear that James and Alice are uniquely positioned to build a durable on-ramp for the continent.
— Casey Caruso, Investment Partner at Paradigm
Additional participation in the round comes from ParaFi Capital, Pantera Capital, Delphi Ventures, Kingsway Capital, Gemini Frontier Fund, BH Digital, Graticule Asset Management Asia, Shima Capital, Morningstar Ventures and more. These new backers share the same enthusiasm for our vision for Africa as our seed round investors, which include Coinbase Ventures, Tiger Global, and Alameda Research.
We couldn’t be more excited to be on this journey together with some of the best investors, advisors, and partners across the Web3 universe. We plan to use our funding to:
- Double our team across Africa by end of the year to provide the critical talent required to educate the continent on the potential of Web3 technology
- Expand into 15+ additional cities by the end of the year with the goal of having over 200K active community members, students, and ambassadors affiliated with our educational efforts
- Hire the engineers needed to build a Web3 super app that will enable Africans to trade crypto, buy and sell NFTs, experience play-to-earn crypto games, and access top-notch global web3 applications that we are bringing to Africa
And because we’re passionate about true Web3 transformation in Africa and can’t do it alone, we’ll partner with others to launch the AfricaDAO investment fund to empower and invest in startups who share in our vision and mission to positively impact the lives of millions across Africa for decades to come.
We’re hard at work finalizing our ecosystem of Web3 apps and are excited to reveal more when the time comes.
About Jambo
Jambo is building the Web3 super app that will educate, bank and entertain the continent. Jambo aims to pioneer the largest, most influential Web3 user acquisition portal across the continent and serve as the bridge between Africa and applications from around the world seeking to tap into the African market. The opportunity here is immense. We have a long-term vision of realizing financial prosperity for Africans.
Keep up with Jambo’s latest developments and announcements:
