It was at the Tech Art District, a one-of-a-kind technology-driven edutainment theme park in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city that EMURGO Africa (EA) restated its commitment to power Africa’s Web3 industry. A host of key stakeholders of Nigeria’s Web3 industry including Binance, Fuse Network, Innovation Support Network (ISN) and the Stakeholders in Blockchain Technology Association of Nigeria (SiBAN) were present. Tapping into Abuja as a growing tech hub outside of Lagos, the center of Nigeria’s tech industry, the event attracted a host of innovators and builders in the capital city.

At the event, tagged the State of Web 3.0 in Africa, EA shared the key bits from the State of Web 3.0 in Africa report which it published in partnership with famed audit and advisory firm PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited (PWC). In this report, EA shared investment data, trends, challenges, and opportunities in Africa’s growing Web 3 industry. The regional entity of Cardano's founding entity, which has invested in over 50 Africa-focused companies since it was launched two years ago, also shared lessons learned from its on-the-ground investment operations on the continent.

I had the privilege of representing NODO, along with NODO's marketing manager, Samuel Joseph.

As the broader Web3 industry reels from the aftershock of a crypto winter and the implosion of FTX, EA’s support for Africa’s local industry has proven to be more than timely. With a $100 million fund purposed for Africa and the Middle East, EA is bringing much-needed funding and concurrently, with this report, high-level operational intelligence.

Bullish on Africa

While giving the keynote speech, Shogo Ishida, the co-CEO of EMURGO Middle East & Africa (MEA) and Co-Founder of NODO, explained that EA is interested in Africa because it has a huge potential and presents numerous investment opportunities. “Firstly, we believe in the potential of Africa. Secondly, as EMURGO is a commercial entity, it means that we have to generate revenues and we have also seen many of such opportunities here in Africa,” he said. However, he bemoaned the lack of awareness of global investors about the investment opportunities in Africa, a situation he attributes to a lack of information about the continent’s startup ecosystem. “I know there are so many good local venture capitalists in Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt, however, there is not much money inflow from the global VC. Why? It’s because they don't have much information about Africa”, he said. “But we came in because we have information and of course, can catch up on that information. Then the innovators gave us a lot of valuable information to make us further believe in Africa.”

EA has made more than 50 investments in Africa and the Middle East over the past two years. Impressively, 80% of these investments were directed towards Africa, with a notable emphasis on Nigerian companies. Specifically, EA has invested in 20 Nigerian companies. This preference for Nigeria can be attributed to its commendably low rate of Web3 startup failures compared to the global average, according to Ishida.

According to The Better Africa report by pan-African tech media publication Weetracker and investment firm Greentech Capital Africa Foundation, which sampled 500 Africa-focused companies in 2019, Nigeria’s 61% startup failure rate is the lowest on the continent. In other parts of the continent, startup failure rates range from 75% in Ethiopia and 74% in Ghana to 58.3% in Senegal and 58.7% in Kenya.

Nigeria tops the world in crypto adoption, with 47% of Nigerians indicating they own or have used cryptocurrencies in the last 5 years, according to Statista Consumer Insight. This positive perception of crypto as the future of money has made the country the breeding ground for Web 3 innovation and a good seedbed for resultant investments, Ishida said at the event.

However, the country still battles with payment problems and restrictions on foreign exchange card payments, but this makes it a good market for retail crypto payments and the fintech companies powering them.

Key attractions

A panel discussion on navigating the Web3 space was moderated by Uyoyo Ogedegbe, the Business Development Manager at Convexity, with Nnamdi Uba of blockchain-powered property solution House Africa and Taslim Salaudeen of data acquisition company Milsat as speakers.

The speakers shared the way they navigate building blockchain-powered innovative solutions with and for private and government organizations in Nigeria. For Taslim, it’s important to learn from experienced founders. “ Look for people that have passed through the same thing as you and let them advise you. They can advise you according to their history, then you will know what to do. That’s the best way to navigate this path,” he said.

An eye-catching part of the event was the NODO GRANT live pitching contest which featured five innovative blockchain-based projects coming on stage to share their pain points, solutions, market size, and business strategy to impress the audience. The list of competing startups was diverse, ranging from decentralized projects to healthcare, legal, and compliance projects including Notaze, Pepp, CaaS, Legum, and Wego Health.

The winning startup, CaaS, an automated crypto-compliance solution, went home with the $1,000 NODO GRANT. In an interview with NODO, Chioma Onyekelu, CaaS’s representative and project manager, expressed gratitude to the organizing team for the opportunity and revealed that the grant would help them significantly grow.

“We are grateful to NODO for this opportunity and I'm sure this grant will help take CaaS to a greater level. Overall, the grant is going to help us to scale beyond where we are at now, and also fine-tune our presentation and operations,” she said, adding that the NODO grant would help the early-stage startup improve marketing efforts, attend more startup events, conduct demo sessions for client startups, and enhance their website.