Xend Finance is a Nigerian startup launched in 2020 and focuses on opening credit facilities for users which eliminates. When it began operations there was a scarcity of funds to advance the project but some of their investors such as Binance Labs, Google Developers Launchpad, and AU21 capital both gathered funds amounting to $2 million for the startup to begin operations.
The company since its launch has achieved a lot of achievements and now, they have reached another landmark with over 100,000 users operating on their platform. The company has also announced that it has opened the ability for countries like Kenya and Ghana to save in their local currencies which are:
Ghanaian Cedis (GES)
Kenyan Shillings (KES)
In an interview concerning this milestone, Ugochukwu Aronu, CEO-Xend Finance, said:
“We have spent our first year pushing code and ensuring our platform is secure through numerous audits while developing a product that always gives our users the best interest rates across multiple chains.
Now that we have turned our attention to onboarding users, we have seen a tremendous response from first-time crypto purchasers and savers. Our growth is in response to market conditions where their native currency is constantly devalued and suffering from inflation”.
The introduction of Cedis and Shillings will coincide with the opening of a billboard campaign across both Ghana and Kenya which has already been operational in Nigeria where Xend finance already has 50 billboards nationwide.
More On What Users Can Do With Xend Finance App
The company also allows users to use their mobile app in converting their local currencies to either stable coins or US dollars to gain access to high APYs which spread across both Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Polygon and that can be done either by staking or conserving their cryptocurrency for some time.
Their users can also use the mobile app as a Defi wallet which enables peer-to-peer fiat-to-crypto on and off-ramp.
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Also commenting on the milestone, the CEO and Co-Founder of Polygon, Sandeep Nailwai, said: “Congratulations to Xend Finance on passing 100,000 users on their platform. They have shown a clear-cut need for services targeting underserved regions.
As an early investor, I am proud of the work they are doing in Africa and beyond. Polygon is here to support their efforts in underserved regions around the world”.
Xend Finance in 1 Year After its Mainnet Launch
Even though the company is just clocking a year after mainnet launched in March 2021, the company has achieved a lot among which include:
i) The industry’s first high-yield aggregator.
ii) The ability to scan multiple blockchains enables it to offer the best interest rate to its users.
iii) The introduction of the Xend finance hackathon featured a lot of keynote speakers such as Mike Novogratz, Binance, Cointelegraph, CoinDesk, and Huobi.
The company which is the first Defi platform in the industry for cooperatives, credit unions, and individuals is now recognized more as a global blockchain bank that everyone can use. The company is focused on closing the gap between financial services and decentralized blockchain.
The company has allowed users to convert their local currencies into stable cryptocurrencies which makes them tackle the problem of currency inflation and devaluation. It has also granted the users to earn mouthwatering interests when they save on the platform.
Before their mainnet launch, Xend finance secured a lot of investment from companies like NGC Ventures, Hashkey, and Tech Fusion which prompted the total investment in their company to rise to $2 million. They also through DAO maker generated approximately $144 million and these were assets that were staked by over 3,200 users with 14,452 issued tickets.
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During their mainnet launch, they introduced a token through a Token Generation Event (TGE) on Balancer which they called $Xend Finance and rewarded users who performed operations following Xend Finance protocol and rewarded developers who followed their Xend Finance’s Layer-2 Defi protocol with $1 million in prizes.
Other Initiatives By Xend Finance
In September, they organized a Xend Finance Defi Hackathon which was intended to improve Africa’s access to blockchain technologies and it was the biggest Blockchain Hackathon that took place in Africa.
The company brought out judges from Binance, Polygon, Google, CoinDesk, and Huobi to determine who the winners of the competition were and the two winners who emerged from the Hackathon were:
i) Lazeray Finance;
ii) FarmGrid.
The company didn’t stop at the hackathon, instead, they created the first cross-chain high yield aggregator on Binance which was a great relief for yield farmers, savers, and investors worldwide to access all the information they needed on the Xend Finance dashboard.
The innovation of the cross-chain high yield aggregator was like cold water in the summer because it helped the platform monitor yields and transfer crypto which will enable them to find the best yield for its users.
Finally, in December 2021 the company introduced the long-awaited mobile app which provides users the ease to convert local currencies into US dollars and the ease of performing this task earned them the position of one of the highest-rated apps on both the Google Play store and the Apple store.
That same month they also introduced the African Decentralized Launchpad, which helps African companies connect with power investors worldwide.
To empower the youths, Xend Finance started a campaign across various Nigerian universities in February 2022 to enlighten them on how to beat the problems that they encounter while trying to save the Nigerian Naira and they have gained over 2,000 new users with that campaign.
They also won the “Most Outstanding Alternative Use of the Blockchain” award, this award is for celebrating those startups who use the Blockchain to achieve their solutions aside from cryptocurrency.
