Jambo raises $7.5M to develop Africa’s web3 “super-app”

TL;DR Breakdown

• The African web3 super app Jambo raises $7.5M in a seed round.
• Jambo Super is a one-stop mobile app that provides a variety of services.

As announced on Monday, Jambo, an African web3 startup, has raised $7.5 million in a seed financing round that included prominent crypto investors. Jambo is a Congo-based company specializing in “learn, play, and earn” while also reducing access barriers to crypto-based moneymaking possibilities.

Jambo as a one-stop-shop mobile app

Jambo’s seed money came from a diverse group of prominent investors in the cryptocurrency space. Some of these investors include Delphi Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, and Three Arrows Capital, among others.

The Jambo super app is a one-stop mobile application for a variety of services, including ride-hailing, banking, communication, and food delivery. Other comparable apps include WeChat in China, Paytm in India, and Grab in Southeast Asia.

According to James Zhang, the company’s founder, the goal of Jambo is to lead the adoption of web3 in Africa. According to experts, Africa is on the verge of being revolutionized by web3 in the same manner as Southeast Asia has become one of the most promising markets for web3.

Zhang said that the company aims to enable financial inclusion for millions across Africa through play-to-earn (P2E) gaming, remittance, and decentralized finance (DeFi). Not only is the super app a game-changing product, but it has both advantages and drawbacks. The benefits include a large youth population worldwide, smartphones, and growing crypto adoption. Low GDP per capita is cited as one of the drawbacks, along with joblessness, which makes Africa ripe for web3 innovation.

Affairs of the continent: “boots on the ground”

Africa has been a quick convert to cryptocurrency: During July 2020 and June 2021, Africa’s crypto industry expanded by over $100 billion. According to the World Economic Forum, this translates into a value of around 1,200%.

Guilds and P2E are two genres of incentivized crypto gaming. Guilds are composed of people who play these incentivized crypto games online and make profits. However, Jambo has no intention to operate as a guild.

Jambo also does not view the region as a monolith. Instead, it is adopting a “boots on the ground” strategy and coming up with suitable methods for each culture. To make matters better, the company has enrolled 12,000 pupils from 15 African nations in a carefully selected online blockchain curriculum since January 2022.

According to Zhang, JamboAcademy will assist with knowledge gaps in P2E ad DeFi. The academy is focused on university students in Sub-Saharan Africa at the moment. However, full web3 courses are accessible at over 600 partner locations around the continent.

The company is establishing local teams and offices in 15 countries around Africa. They intend to test and offer services relevant to the continent’s many communities and countries.