Jambo, a Congolese web3 startup, has secured $30 million in series A funding round led by Paradigm, a firm known for backing disruptive crypto and Web3 companies and protocols.
Additional participation in the round comes from ParaFi Capital, Pantera Capital, Delphi Ventures, Kingsway Capital, Gemini Frontier Fund, BH Digital, Graticule Asset Management Asia, Shima Capital, Morningstar Ventures and more.
These new backers share the same enthusiasm for Jambo’s vision for Africa as its seed round investors, which include Coinbase Ventures, Tiger Global, and Alameda Research. Jambo recently closed a $7.5 million seed round.
Founded in 2021 by James Zhang, Jambo, a Congo-based startup is building Africa’s web3 user acquisition marketplace through “learn, play, earn” and democratizing access to crypto-based income-generation opportunities.
Jambo wants to introduce young Africans to Web 3 financial ecosystems through play-to-earn gaming and decentralized finance (Defi) services including currency exchanges and remittances.
So far, the startup has hit some milestones including opening Jambo offices across the continent for its on-the-ground operations, partnering with thousands of internet cafes and college booths to provide Web3 students access to computers and high speed internet and garnering interest from thousands of people in Africa to test and use the Jambo Web3 super app that it’s building.
On what the new funding will be used for, Jambo said in a blog post announcing the series A said: ” We will double our team across Africa by end of the year to provide the critical talent required to educate the continent on the potential of Web3 technology, expand into 15+ additional cities by the end of the year with the goal of having over 200K active community members, students, and ambassadors affiliated with our educational efforts and hire the engineers needed to build a Web3 super app that will enable Africans to trade crypto, buy and sell NFTs, experience play-to-earn crypto games, and access top-notch global web3 applications that we are bringing to Africa.”
Casey Caruso, Investment Partner at Paradigm said: “As Paradigm’s first investment in Africa, we couldn’t be more excited to partner with the Jambo team in this next phase of growth. We see massive Web3 potential in Africa and it’s clear that James and Alice are uniquely positioned to build a durable on-ramp for the continent.”
