Evidently, Nigeria is not the only African country where cryptocurrency is making waves. VALR, a South African startup that’s yet to launch, has raised the $1.5 million in a seed funding round that was led by Bittrex — a United State blockchain trading platform.
When VALR eventually launches, it will allow people trade, store and transfer more than 50 cryptocurrencies. Another investor that participated in the round is Montegray Capital.
Beyond leading the investment round, Bittrex will also be providing its technology to the startup. The startup will also have access to all cryptocurrencies and digital tokens available on both the Bittrex and Bittrex International platforms.
VALR CEO, Farzam Ehsani said the company is looking forward to advancing the cryptocurrency industry in South Africa and beyond.
VALR has joined the league of cryptocurrency trading platforms in Africa that have raised over a million dollars in a single round.
Kenya-based BitPesa in 2018 raised $5million from Sompo Holdings, having previously raised $6.7 million in a Series A round led by Greycroft in 2017. Worthy of note is that the company has raised five investment rounds — one annually since 2014. And of those five rounds, only one is less than a million dollars.
For Nigeria, no cryptocurrency trading company in the country has raised up to a million dollars. According to the Nigerian Startup Funding Report 2018, the highest that such a Nigerian startup raised last year was $120k. However, Kora Network -- a company using blockchain to enable people to send money to each other -- raised $12 million in an ICO in 2018.
