Adaverse backs Ejara, woman-led DeFi platform to democratize African finance

Adaverse backs Ejara, woman-led DeFi platform to democratize African finance

Adaverse, a Cardano ecosystem accelerator created as a joint venture between EMURGO Africa and Everest Ventures Group to accelerate Web3 entrepreneurs in Africa, has finalized a strategic investment in Ejara, an investment platform that improves access to financial solutions through blockchain. Adaverse was founded to help African Web3 startups.

Adaverse has opted to join in a Series A fundraising round alongside other key investors in order to support Ejara’s empowerment drive and expansion into other areas.

Ejara’s mission is to improve the economic prospects of over 400 million individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly young people and women who lack access to banking services and are unemployed.

In order to achieve this goal and aid Africans in recovering control of their wealth, Ejara mixes traditional banking practices with cryptocurrencies.

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“Ejara meets a pressing need across the Francophone region, and we are enthused about the business concept, which we believe can be reproduced across the African continent,” said Vincent Li, founding partner at Adaverse.

They have demonstrated that they understand the people and have constructed a bridge between crypto and traditional finance, relying on continuity rather than disruption.

The market is ready for goods that leverage innovation to improve established models, and we believe that Ejara can maintain this momentum to benefit lives through its socially impactful platform.”

Ejara is a cutting-edge financial organisation that serves the Francophone African community as well as the diaspora in the world of cryptocurrency.

Their primary goal is to provide financial solutions that allow unrestricted access to a number of investment possibilities, such as fractional shares, commodities, and cryptocurrency, while also allowing secure and quick payment repatriation across international borders.

Remark from Ejara’s CEO

Ejara CEO Nelly Chateu-Diop shared, “When France devalued the CFA Franc in 1994, I was growing up in Douala, Cameroon, and I saw firsthand how bad economic instability could be. This experience left a lasting impression on me and motivated me to find a solution for the financial challenges faced by many African families. In 2015, after becoming familiar with blockchain technology, I partnered with my long-time friend and successful entrepreneur, Baptiste Andrieux, to establish Ejara with the goal of empowering Francophone Africans to grow and secure their finances.”

“We have built the Ejara payment app with the end-user in mind, and our multi-asset platform offers safe investment, asset ownership, and swift payment without borders. The Ejara payment solution provides swift and secure user-to-user transfers powered by Lightning Network to improve transactional services for SMEs and cross-border remittances,” she continued.

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Details on Ejara and its Engagements

Ejara is a crypto wallet and savings app that connects to the popular mobile money transfer platform (MoMo). This offers low-cost on/off-ramp transaction gateways. Our investment portfolio includes crypto assets and trading pairs, and we are developing our next app phase to tokenize real-world commodities, government bonds, and equity. Customers can invest in local and worldwide enterprises and receive 5% interest on their funds.

Ejara is the first to enable crypto investing in CFA through on/off-ramp transactions in local currency with a non-custodial crypto wallet, decreasing the barrier for the unlearned and unbanked without compromising asset protection. Retailers, farmers, small merchants, Entrepreneurs, and students can effortlessly save, invest, buy shares, and make rapid payments with mobile money integration. Most crypto apps require P2P capability. We want Africans to have easy access to diversified investment portfolios and cryptocurrency.

Ejara has serviced over 33,000 people from Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Senegal, and French-speaking Africans in Europe, Asia, and the US since its 2020 start. When we enter new markets, our savings and investments grow. Diasporan Africans utilise Ejara for fast cross-border and user-to-user payments.

Ejara wants to be Africa’s financial app and give our fast growing user base more investment options. They prioritise asset security, user privacy, DeFi education for empowerment, and expanding our aspirations to Francophone Africa and beyond. Ejara’s next product development phase will tokenize real-world commodities and shares, and they look on from Cardano Accelerator Adaverse’s advisory and technical support.