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Good morning!
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High-profile investors have tasted the Nigeria tech ecosystem waters and can't get enough. We've had all types of investors come into the space looking for the next big thing.
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Now we are having a drove of what you can call celebrity investors hawking around the space. First came tennis star Serena Williams. Now comes Silicon Valley influencer, Peter Thiel leading a 6 million dollar round in Maplerad.
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Below are the tech stories and news you need to know to start your day, carefully curated by Technext.
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Summary of the news
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- Maplerad has raised $6M, led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures
- Kanye West wants to buy Parler, the social media company
- NALA will now allow Apple Pay from the UK and US into Africa
- Mastercard will offer cryptocurrency trading options to banks
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Maplerad raise $6M
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Maplerad, a fintech described by its founders Miracle Anywanwu and Obinna Chukwujioke as a global BaaS player targeting Africa, has raised $6 million in seed funding. According to sources, the U.S.-based Maplerad, which is coming out of stealth, raised the round at a $30 million valuation. The founders declined to comment.
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Maplerad’s journey as a company can be traced back to 2020, when the founders launched its first product, Wirepay. The app started by helping users make international payments by offering cross-border payment solutions in fiat and cryptocurrency, TechCrunch reports.
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However, it has since shifted into a self-described all-in-one finance product that enables users to receive, hold, and make payments in multiple currencies, create virtual and physical cards, and pay bills.
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Last year, Wirepay raised an undisclosed pre-seed, including a $125,000 check from OnDeck. Golden Palm Investments Corporation, Greenhouse Capital, some Stash executives, and Berrywood Capital were other investors in the round.
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Miracle Anywanwu told TechCrunch that:
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From day one, when we built Wirepay for our consumers, we knew the end move would be infrastructural even though we didn’t start the business infrastructure first. For anyone to build anything finance-related, they have a whole lot of banking stack that they have to start with and even before integrating features, they have to go past many hurdles.
One of them is banking relationships and compliance. The other is licencing. So Maplerad is solving financial infrastructure problems for these businesses in Africa. We handle that whole stack and provide the best-in-class APIs to use that can make you launch a financial product within five minutes. So instead of a company spending 8 months and a couple of million dollars to start building a fintech product, you can integrate with our APIs and go live.
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A word from our partners!
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Connect with top global businesses by assisting them in integrating Fincra's APIs, and earn money while at it! Ready to make some extra money doing what you enjoy?
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Kanye West to buy social media app, Parler
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Kanye West has agreed in principle to buy Parler, the social media service that has attracted fans of former President Donald J. Trump, the service’s parent company, Parlement Technologies, said in a news release on Monday.
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“In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves,” the rapper and fashion designer, who now goes by Ye, said in the statement released by Parlement Technologies, which did not disclose the agreed-upon price.
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The app returned to Google’s Play app store in September, more than a year after Google suspended it for content that incited violence. The app had also been banned and reinstated from Apple’s App Store.
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NALA to enable Apple Pay from the UK and US
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NALA, a Tanzanian-born fintech startup announced yesterday that customers can now make payments from the UK and US via Apple Pay.
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TechCabal reports that this newest integration with world payment service, Apple Pay, reaffirms NALA’s ambition to enable seamless and “lightning-fast payments” to Africa. Apple Pay is an advanced mobile payment service developed by Apple Inc that digitises card payments and is optimised for contactless in-store payments.
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With over 45 million users in the US alone, the payment service is a go-to for many people in countries like the US and UK, which are countries where NALA’s users are.
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NALA’s integration with Apple Pay comes seven months after the African fintech launched operations in the US with an event held in New York, attended by six members of the Tanzanian parliament.
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Benjamin Fernandes, NALA’s founder and CEO said in a statement:
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“NALA’s mission is to increase economic opportunities for Africans globally, enabling Apple Pay is a step towards connecting more global payment options with Africa. This reach allows us to build stronger financial infrastructure for Africans worldwide,”
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A word from our partners!
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For an exclusive 8-week mentorship program for you to take the next step in your Web3 Development Journey, register for the Polygon Bootcamp Africa Class of 2022 slated to hold this September.
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Mastercard to offer crypto trading product
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Mastercard is looking to bring crypto to the masses by making it easier for banks to get involved.
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The payments giant announced a program Monday that will help financial institutions offer cryptocurrency trading, the company told CNBC. Mastercard will act as a “bridge” between Paxos, a crypto trading platform already used by PayPal to offer a similar service, and banks, according to the company, CNBC reports.
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Mastercard will handle regulatory compliance and security — two core reasons banks cite for avoiding the asset class.
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Some consumers have been sceptical, too. Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are known for volatility, and the world’s top digital assets have lost more than half of their value this year. The industry has suffered billions in hacks since January, coupled with multiple high-profile bankruptcies.
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“There’s a lot of consumers out there that are really interested in this, and intrigued by crypto, but would feel a lot more confident if those services were offered by their financial institutions,” Mastercard’s chief digital officer, Jorn Lambert, told CNBC in an interview. “It’s a little scary to some people still.”
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Latest in funding
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Other stories we are following
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