article thumbnail

Nigerian blockchain payments startup Bitmama closes $2M pre-seed as it scales to new markets

TechCrunch

Despite African governments’ inconsistent stance on cryptocurrencies, these countries house most of the continent’s crypto and blockchain startups. Chief executive officer Ruth Iselema founded the Africa-focused blockchain payments startup in 2019. Adam Umar is the company’s CTO, while Akinbola Asalu is the COO.

article thumbnail

Blockchain: Distributed Shared Ledger Technology in Banking

Hacker Earth Developers Blog

Over 90% of the world’s leading banks are either exploring, experimenting (PoCs), or formulating a strategy for leveraging blockchain technology, says an Accenture survey. Since its inception ten years ago, there has been plenty of hype around blockchain. An overview of Blockchain in Business Process Management (BPM).

article thumbnail

For the love of the loot: Blockchain, the metaverse and gaming’s blind spot

TechCrunch

Marketers and decision-makers, already suffering from FOMO about opportunities within gaming, have latched onto buzzy trends like the applications of blockchain in gaming and the “metaverse” in an effort to get ahead of the trend rather than constantly play catch-up. Let’s start with the example of blockchain and, more specifically, NFTs.

article thumbnail

Fortis Digital Ventures closing $100 million raise for new crypto fund

TechCrunch

Even as more traditional financial players enter the crypto world, blockchain investor Fortis Digital Ventures is closing a $100 million crypto fund that aims to bridge the gap between the old and new finance worlds. “By million or higher, a spokesperson said. “We

article thumbnail

FlexID gets Algorand funding to offer self-sovereign IDs to Africa’s unbanked

TechCrunch

Much of the world’s attention around blockchain is on the highs and lows of cryptocurrency values. Startups like FlexID remind us that distributed ledger technology has the potential to play other roles, including offering trusted records of identities without the need for a centralized authority.

article thumbnail

Why fintechs are buying up legacy financial services companies

TechCrunch

Earlier this month, blockchain-based lender Figure Technologies agreed to merge with mortgage firm Homebridge Financial Services, which has 180 retail branches and funded more than $25 billion in home loans in 2020.

Fintech 265
article thumbnail

Meet the newest crypto builders from web3 accelerator Alliance DAO’s demo day

TechCrunch

Oftentimes these events are filled with traditional seed-stage tech companies based in Silicon Valley. About three-fourths of the teams are focusing on NFTs, infrastructure or decentralized finance (DeFi), while the majority of the teams are building on layer-1 blockchains Ethereum, Polygon and Solana. Stage: Seed round.