• Canza Finance

  Participated · Seed · Mar 2022

  Canza Finance, founded in 2020 by Pascal Ntsama and Oyedeji Oluwole (CTO), is a Nigerian DeFi-focused neobank that builds on-chain FX and crypto products for cross-border settlement. Its core offerings include Baki, a synthetic on-chain FX exchange, the DeFi protocol jollof.fi, and CXDS for creating credit default swaps; it plans jaraOTC (an OTC FX trading platform) and a Canza Crypto Teller Machine for on/offramps. The company charges 1% per transaction today while Baki aims to lower fees to 0.2%. Canza processes roughly $2,000,000 in transactions weekly and serves markets in Senegal, Nigeria, Cameroon, and the United States. Future plans emphasize accelerating infrastructure development across Africa and obtaining operational licences in multiple jurisdictions to become an authorised registered entity. The startup works with on- and off-ramp partners and targets reducing forex frictions for African companies and local FX agents. Canza Finance provides crypto-based cross-border settlement and treasury management services aimed at connecting Nigerian businesses to the global economy. Its most advanced product is cross-border settlement, which the company says processes roughly $1 million in weekly volume to Canada, China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States. The treasury management service is scheduled to launch later in the year and is planned to offer DeFi staking pools to help B2B customers earn interest and mitigate currency-devaluation risk. Canza was founded by former AT&T employees Pascal Ntsama and Oyedeji Oluwole and positions itself as a crypto neobank for African businesses. The company has drawn interest from oil companies and asset managers seeking crypto services for their clients. Canza plans to invest in hiring, compliance and working capital as it scales and pursues regulatory licenses.

• Pocket Network

  Participated · Equity · Jan 2022

  Grove, previously known as Pocket Network, is a crypto infrastructure service provider that delivers services to stakeholders in blockchain infrastructure. The company rebranded from Pocket Network to Grove. According to the article, Grove recently secured $7.9 million in financing. Investors named in the report include Fidelity's Avon Ventures, Placeholder Capital and Druid Ventures. The article characterizes the funding as a strategic investment. No operating metrics or additional financial terms were provided in the article. Pocket Network is an infrastructure middleware protocol that provides decentralized cloud computing and abundant bandwidth on full nodes to applications across more than 20 blockchains, including Ethereum, Polygon, Solana and Harmony. The protocol coordinates and distributes blockchain data at scale, enabling developers to integrate blockchains into web, mobile, IoT and other applications. Usage and network activity have grown rapidly: monthly relays rose from 89 million a year earlier to 5.5 billion in December, with over two billion relays in a single week and daily peaks above 300M relays. The network is served by over 18,000 nodes run by hundreds of independent parties. Pocket Network reported total network revenue exceeding $56,000,000 in December, placing it among the Top Five revenue producers for blockchains and blockchain applications per Token Terminal. The company plans multi-jurisdictional expansion into the Asia-Pacific region and aims to scale to trillions of relays per day and hundreds of thousands of full nodes within five years.

No current team members are available.