No question the market opportunity for web3 and BitDAO are enormous here. As a founder in Nigeria and Kenya that has worked in 6 African countries over 10+ years, I can say that the analysis on adoption trends, aversion to local currencies, and huge youth population is spot on. We see constant interest from our users and partners looking to engage in new ways with crypto. Nowhere else in the world is the mass market opportunity for web3 more palpable.
AfricaDAO’s approach – actively educating, partnering, and building a platform to introduce the multitude of early and emerging web3 opportunities to Africans through Jambo, as well as identifying opportunities in Africa through investment in the burgeoning startup ecosystem – has the positioning to capture the enormous opportunities available. There is clearly a gap that needs to be bridged – the startup ecosystem in Africa is thriving but lacking in web3 resources – AfricaDAO has the potential to be the premier investor and ecosystem partner in the space.
Excited by this opportunity - Africa is ripe for Web3 disruption; the focus on educating the people through their academies IMO will provide a sustainable growth trajectory with a loyal customer base. Knowing a few of the Team members personally, I believe they have a strong balance of Crypto natives, gaming experts and commercial acumen which will allow success in Africa where others have struggled
Gemini Frontier Fund is happy to support Jambo and its initiative with launching AfricaDAO. We see the potential for accelerated growth in Africa and think seeding companies and entrepreneurs across the continent will provide the funding they need to propel towards success. We have full faith in the team that has aligned to bring this mission to fruition and are excited to see it flourish.
Hi @tdindefiland, thank you for the support and insight! Totally agree that the ability to identify and source local talent is the key. The level of localization and on-the ground knowledge is what sets AfricaDAO apart from others. We are continually growing our network of experienced regional advisers from different parts of the continent to accelerate the continent onto web3.
We see future collaboration opportunities with existing BitDAO AE’s through P2E with Game7, collaborative education through EduDAO and community owned and scalable web3 applications secured by zkDAO which we outlined in our proposal. AfricaDAO will work with all of the existing BitDAO AE’s to expand their communities to the African continent.
At AfricaDAO, we believe in the untapped potential the African continent has to offer. According to the African Development Bank (AfDB), as of 2017, 22% of Africa’s working-age population are starting new businesses — the highest rate in the world — and 38% of Africa’s entrepreneurs are between the ages of 25-34 [1]. With information like this showcased in our proposal, we are also eager to participate in the development of web3 in Africa!
Hi @AmazingDDY, I really appreciate the time and effort you took going through the proposal and the thoughtful comments!
Africa’s adoption of web3 mirrors that of the Philippines in the early days, but there are also huge differences. If we look at the GameFi space last year, we can see that P2E games played a huge role in SEA due to some tailwinds such as low GDP, lack of job opportunities, great mobile and 4G penetration to name a few. If we take the same value propositions in SEA and compare them to Africa, you will see that Africa takes this to the extreme by order of magnitude. Average monthly income in the Philippines is around $700 ~800 [1], while the average monthly salary in DR Congo is around $200~300. The median age in the Philippines is 25.7 [2] while the median age in Sub Saharan Africa is 18. If the right resources and support are provided to the continent, Africa has even more potential for mass adoption than SEA.
In fact, we can already see that Africa is leading the current technology revolution both from the private and government side. @zkLennox mentioned M-Pesa as a great example of how Africa is using new technologies to get ahead of the global technology curve and @jambojames also brought up how the CAR is adopting Bitcoin as one of their national currencies. Some more innovative use cases for blockchain out of Africa are tokens representing natural resource rights such as minerals[3], land and property registry [4] and even peer to peer energy sharing projects [5]
There is still definitely a space for using current infrastructure as a base and building a complimentary web3 solution rather than outright replacing an existing system to ease transition and hasten integration. AfricaDAO is going to be working with local providers in Africa and leveraging our pooled resources to bypass any current limitations for web3 implementation. Keep an eye out for new projects coming out in this space in the coming years!
Thank you for the support @Connie! Our goal at AfricaDAO is to unlock Africa’s potential by empowering the best talent with the right tools to succeed. We strive to back the best teams across the continent to spearhead web3 adoption.
Immediately starting up AfricaDAO across the entirety of Africa seems rather ambitious given the diversity of each region as you previously mentioned. Why not start at one of the major markets first like Nigeria or Lagos to establish a foothold before going to all these other markets?
Thank you for the continuous support and trust in us @gemini.frontier.fund! It’s been a pleasure working with you, looking forward to accelerating the web3 adoption and supporting the best founders in Africa together!
Thank you @Enziga for your insightful comments! Definitely one of my favorites of the day!
Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times using innovative solutions. African entrepreneurs, having undergone a trial by fire in the past decade, are best positioned to create a better future catalyzed by the development of web3. Considering the litany of socio-economic issues in Africa such as high inflation, instability and high unemployment rate, web3 has the potential to change lives for the better. Innovation in this space can empower people with financial freedom and return to them the power they deserve.
Our mission at AfricaDAO is to accelerate web3 innovation in Africa by bringing together a unique network of investors, advisors, capital and social resources to support young and innovative African entrepreneurs. As the African founders are the implementers of each solution, the education and unique resources AfricaDAO has to offer will be the backbone of future web3 unicorns across the continent.
Thank you for your support Chirag! We are committed to bringing top investors like you to work alongside regional talent to build the future of Africa. Let’s supercharge Africa for the next decade and beyond together!
Hi @oussing, great to hear from a fellow African founder! Thank you for your thoughtful comment and for your trust in us! We agree, Africa is ripe for disruption and development and web3 provides the perfect ecosystem and tools to empower founders and developers to implement the improvements and leapfrog the continent.
Getting support and recognition from local founders like you means a lot. In fact, many of our supporters are highly respected web3 entrepreneurs or investors building in their localities (North, South, East, West Africa) for many years out of their passion for Africa. We see the same latent potential for growth in the region that you do. Combining the best web3 knowledge with local expertise is the best way to support the next wave of African entrepreneurs in spearheading the development of their solutions.
It all boils down to data acquisition. Other companies entering Africa through one submarket and then trying to scale from there is quite difficult because they only develop regional resources that don’t scale well across borders. In doing a large initial launch we are able to leverage a continental network of advisors and their expertise all together, FYI whose bios are included in our proposal We talk about this more in our medium article at: Jambo: Pioneering the Largest, Most Influential Web3 Community in Africa | by Jambo Technology | Jambo Technology | Medium, but to give a sense of scale there are over 2,000 distinct dialects in Africa. To find your product market fit you have to test out and gather data points yourself and the best way to do so is to have an established local team.
AfricaDAO has carefully curated a set of advisors and partners in each major local region who already have the knowledge of how to work within their respective markets. This is an invaluable resource for any company looking to scale and we believe will be a massive advantage for all future AfricaDAO projects.
Awesome proposal. And the team, of investors & regional advisors, behind AfricaDAO is absolutely rocking!
Also I enjoyed listening to @jambojames 's podcast on blockworks, your enthusiasm for Jambo, and vision for Africa are truly riveting. Best wishes.
Trust this works out exceedingly well.
Btw- appreciate clarification, or elaboration for the following :
(Page 12 of the proposal)
Structure
“The Investment and Acquisition component of this initiative will be structured as a standard
GP/LP fund with a standard 2/20 management/performance fee.”
I can tell this AricaDAO proposal will definitely bring more resources and attention to Africa. The team is absolutely the best one that can change the whole graph and redefine the way how Web3 will bring a better life to people there. I feel excited about what’s gonna happen in the next 10 years! Best team ever, let’s rock!
Hi AfricaDAO,
Your project and local support is amazing and the vote is well on your side, congratulations !!
I have nevertheless some questions and comments.
The first one is that AfricaDAO is mainly focus on crypto adoption in Africa. To reach this objective, education is key but the budget allocated to Education is 5% which is not a significant part of the total budget, why ?
Second question is about the 90% of the budget allocated to investments and acquisition. AfricaDAO has identified 5 main relevant criteria but plenty of projects may fit, especially at an early stage, so how AfricaDAO will choose these projects? Will AfricaDAO mentor/tutor these projects to lead them to be successful, if yes, how? Will it be transparent for the community, how you choose the funded projects? Will the AfricaDAO community and the BitDAO community be involved in this process ? Otherwise, how AfricaDAO match with the definition of a DAO if the community is not involved ?
Third question also about the “investment and acquisition” part which is 90% of the budget, so 94.5M. Is the acquisition of projects a good way to foster innovation ? Especially if the acquisition is leaded by a third-party here AfricaDAO so considered as an entity of “the crypto industry”. I wonder if a maximum threshold investment (like 49% of max VC investments) would help to justify that AfricaDAO and BitDAO support innovation in Africa, but do not own it.
Pantera Capital here. We’re investors in both BitDAO and Jambo Technology and are proud to be an official supporter of this important initiative. Voting YES was an easy decision given the strong:
Proposal which, through its three-pronged approach, clearly outlines a well thought out and robust plan to achieve the DAO’s goal of accelerating web3 adoption in Africa; and
Team (@jambojames and @jamboalice) who are made up of proven operators that know how to navigate their way through the African business ecosystem.
We’ve actively invested into businesses enabling greater access to crypto in Africa, including AZA Finance (fka BitPesa), VALR and Jambo Technology. We’re proud to support the AfricaDAO initiative with the direct involvement of our General Partner, Paul Veradittakit, and are even more excited today for the future of Web3 in Africa.
We look forward to supporting the next wave of founders and proposals that will develop the necessary tools to accelerate the mass adoption of web3 in Africa!
Agreed. Africa has the most traction in crypto adoption, an entrepreneurial spirit, and a large and fast-growing youthful population. The Savimbo Project is looking at Somalia as one of our sites for mangrove fair-trade carbon offsets and given the difficulty with stable banking in the region and collective tribal land ownership, crypto penetration would significantly aid on-the-ground deployment.
We talk about this more in our medium article at: