Image source: Nairametrics

On September 7th, 2023, Nigeria web3 focused company, Nestcoin announced a successful funding round of $1.9 million from a total of 7 investors for its latest product, Onboard Wallet. This is coming after a big blow from the FTX collapse.

Nestcoin, founded by Yele Bademosi, is a company that is focused on building, operating and investing in web3 applications and crypto products. The company was founded in 2021 and has since gained public interests as one of Africa’s most thriving web3 startups.

But nothing prepared it for the unfortunate event that occurred last year when FTX collapsed. It turned out that Nestcoin had a significant portion of its funds in FTX at the time of the collapse and hence suffered a huge setback. This event led to the company laying off some employees. Unlike other founders who’d use this as an excuse to give up, Yele didn’t give up; rather, he kept building.

Earlier this year, Nestcoin announced that it will be focusing on building one product for now - Onboard. In March 2023, the Onboard Wallet was launched.

What is Onboard?

Onboard is a self-custody wallet that allows users to store and move digital assets to and from their bank accounts. With this digital platform, users can easily convert their crypto to their local currencies. Onboard boasts of providing better features and enhanced UX compared to other self-custody wallets.

The recently raised $1.9 million will be geared towards building and improving Onboard. Nestcoin is of the belief that “high-quality financial services should be universally available, regardless of one’s geographical location,” hence the launch of the self-custody wallet.

Among the investors who invested in this round, I’d like to acknowledge Base. Base, a newly launched Ethereum layer 2, recently put up an ecosystem fund and Onboard is one of the first six projects the body has invested in since its recent launch.

P.S - the funds lost in the FTX collapse were funds gotten from the company’s previous funding round which took place in January 2022.

Africa is slowly changing its misconceived narrative!

What are your thoughts?