Top-tier blockchain companies interested in engaging on the continent must understand the unique African landscape. Lisk, a leading Ethereum Layer 2 scaling blockchain, has begun engaging with African pioneers in its dedicated approach to sharing its expertise and enabling mutual learning to fast-track the Web 3 trajectory. The engagement has already started with events in Cape Town, Nairobi, and Lagos to share details and encourage applications to The Lisk Blockchain Incubation Hub, a programme dedicated to supporting African founders to bring their Web3 ideas to life using the Lisk protocol.

Lisk has strong capability and expertise in solving real-life problems in emerging markets using Real World Assets (RWA) tokenisation expertise and building decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN).

The events, organised by NODO on behalf of Lisk and CV Labs, a blockchain accelerator and ecosystem builder, held on April 23rd in Cape Town, April 30th in Nairobi and May 3rd in Lagos, attracted a diverse set of ecosystem talents, including web3 developers from blockchain talent firm Web3bridge, notable figures such as OluwaTobi Ajayi, CEO of crypto payment company IvoryPay, Oyedeji Oluwoye, CTO of DeFi startup Canza Finance, Felix Macharia, CEO of stablecoin payment company Kotani Pay, as well as members of the women-led DAO HERDAO Kenya.

“The greatest problem we see among many startups is the process of going from zero to one. That's the gap we are working to close," Brenton Naicker, veteran blockchain investor and Principal at CV VC, said at the event. 42% of startups die because they lack product market fit. Still, the 5-month Lisk Blockchain Incubation Hub intends to help accepted startups refine their ideas and build a strong business case, solving problems people and businesses are willing to pay for. Coupled with two major phases of the programme, one aimed at building a strong business case and the other at a go-to-market strategy, selected startups are prepared and supported to be revenue-generating and investment-appealing to global investors.

Brenton Naicker, Principal & Head of Growth, CV VC

“The Lisk Blockchain Incubation Hub is a partnership between an accelerator, an investor, and leading layer 2 protocol to incubate 20 African startups and take them from the concept stage to holding a minimum viable product (MVP) before going to market,” Naicker added.

Aside from helping selected applicants refine their ideas, the programme also pairs co-founders with similar interests. At the end of two months of developing their ideas, they are rewarded with $4,000 to help them build an MVP for the next 3 months. Successful startups at the end of the programme are eligible for $20,000 to $100,000 in funding and a fast-track to the CV VC accelerator in Switzerland, qualifying them for up to $135,000 in additional funding.

“A lot of the community and builders on Lisk Layer 1 resided in Nigeria and Indonesia, so what we decided to do with the shift to Layer 2 is a continuation of our overall vision of working as a group to build tech and democratise it to more people. It was also an opportunity to look at the places where the most exciting projects are being built, and it was Africa, without question,” said Dominic Schwenter, Chief Project Officer, who was present alongside other Lisk team members, including Erwan Mismaque, Head of Onchain Finance and Social Media Engagement Lead Lizzy Idowu.

L to R: Sultan Quadri, Writer at NODO; Erwan Mismaque, Head of Onchain Finance at Lisk; Ikemefuna Obioha, Frontend Engineer at Lisk; Lizzy Idowu, Social Media Engagement Lead at Lisk; Georgia Makunga, Business Development Manager at Lisk; Brenton Naicker, Principal & Head of Growth at CV VC; Dominic Schwenter, Chief Project Officer at Lisk; Chidubem Emelumadu, Content Operations Lead at NODO; Caleb Nnamani, Writer at NODO.

Meeting builders’ pain points

Lisk is a part of the Optimism Superchain, a collective of protocols that are coming together to improve infrastructure, make better UI/UX, provide better developer tools, and solve fragmented liquidity in a bid to scale Ethereum across the globe. The Superchain ethos is centred on the idea that individual protocol efforts to attract users to their ecosystem do not adequately represent the good blockchain technology can do for the world. With interoperability at its forefront, Superchain intends to collaborate to prime the blockchain space to be ready for global adoption and use cases.

“After discovering that African developers struggle with expensive smart contract auditing, the Lisk team initiated a proposal for cheaper smart contract auditing on its protocol and with the support of the Optimism team across the Superchain,” Schwenter recounted.

In March, Optimism announced that it earmarked about 850 million Optimism tokens worth $3 billion to fund Superchain developers, builders, and contributors across four retro funding rounds. According to Schwenter, building with Lisk will open developers to this ecosystem of support and funding.

Dominic Schwenter, Chief Project Officer, Lisk

Idris Olubisi, a developer advocate, advised attendees to commit time to building on Layer 2s because they are the future of the blockchain community. "We need layer 2s to onboard the next 1 billion users onchain," he said.

When a potential applicant expressed concern about the programme’s support for selected builders beyond funding, Naicker clarified that during the programme, CV Labs will provide advisory support to selected startups through its network of experienced entrepreneurs and mentors across various industries. “Specifically with the mentorship, it’s coming with the framing of a venture capital angle, with us with our portfolio companies, it’s something we are used to. The same people available to CV VC portfolio companies will be available to successful startups in the Lisk Incubation Hub,” Naicker reassured.

With its blockchain innovation hub, Lisk is notably betting on the promise of crypto meeting the real world, especially in emerging markets, where efforts at tokenisation have witnessed a modest surge. Since last year, Zimbabwe has intensified efforts to tokenise its plenteous gold, while projects like Dragon in Southeast Asia have ramped up efforts to drive RWA adoption.

“We are excited to see the interesting RWA cases our founders will present. From yield-bearing stablecoins to real estate tokenisation, we’ll be exploring the diverse range of innovative use cases that showcase the potential of blockchain technology in revolutionising finance and asset management,” Dominic Schwenter said.

Builders + Lisk team + CV Labs team + NODO team

Caleb Nnamani contributed to this story

Feature Image: Daniel Oladepo, Co-founder, GoWagr