South African Bitcoin and crypto payments solution provider MoneyBadger has closed a $400 000 (roughly R7 million) pre-seed funding round. The funds will be used to drive up adoption of Bitcoin and crypto among merchants in SA.
According to a statement released by the company, the raise was led by P1 Ventures, a VC with deep African fintech exposure, along with three angel investors who are also involved in the Bitcoin and crypto space.
MoneyBadger enables Bitcoin and crypto payments for goods and services at all retailers and service providers, including municipal bills and travel agencies.
Carel van Wyk, CEO of MoneyBadger, who co-founded the Luno crypto exchange, told ITWeb the funds will also be used to grow the company’s team, and expand to other merchants, merchant payment providers as well as e-commerce and mobile payments.
The company is targeting payment providers for large, tier one retailers, online e-commerce payment gateways and QR-based payment networks.
“This funding round, partly funded in Bitcoin, helps us to accelerate these partnerships and expand our well-established service to more consumers, more merchants, more use cases and more countries. We envision a future where you can buy anything and everything with Bitcoin,” said Van Wyk.
The company said it has deployed crypto and Bitcoin payments to over 1 600 outlets in SA, including all Pick n Pay hypermarkets, supermarkets, clothing and express shops.
It integrates with the Binance, Luno, VALR and AltCoinTrader wallets, and Luno, VALR, Blink and Aqua have integrated MoneyBadger’s proprietary QR scanning technology.
This all helps to make Bitcoin payments accessible to a wider number of consumers.
Opportunity in Africa
Van Wyk added that awareness, understanding and adoption of crypto-currencies is increasing in Africa.
He pointed to The Chainalysis Global Adoption Index, which identifies several African countries in the top 100 based on crypto adoption. Among these is Nigeria in second position and SA at 30.
According to Bitcoiners.africa, the top 21 African Bitcoin countries are: Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Zimbabwe, SA, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Egypt, Zambia, Cameroon, Namibia, Morocco, Seychelles, Botswana, Sudan, Ivory Coast, Senegal, DR Congo, Liberia and Benin.
Van Wyk said the company is looking at new markets in Africa and would make announcements in due course.
“At the moment, we are set up to onboard South African businesses and settle funds in South African rands or Bitcoin; however, we are talking to partners who operate throughout Africa and want to enable payments in other markets in Africa,” he said.
Van Wyk has established a team comprising Carl Kritzinger, founder of FireWorks, Ben Blaine, head of growth, founder and former marketing specialist at SnapScan, and Brent Peterson, head of legal and compliance, an authority in crypto regulation and currently chair of the Crypto Asset Association of South Africa. Rounding out the team is Jacques Marais, a full stack engineer with deep experience in infrastructure and payments systems.
This team is tasked with taking the company’s value proposition to market and building on momentum.
Van Wyk said since launching, transaction volumes have grown to over $83 000 (roughly R1.4 million) monthly, serving thousands of crypto spenders nationwide.
“Bitcoin has grown 128% since 2022, from $40 000-odd to around $108 000 in June. We don’t see this growth slowing, which makes the Bitcoin adopter market an attractive one for retailers and merchants."
Hisham Halbouny, managing partner at P1 Ventures, said: "While the West debates crypto regulation, MoneyBadger is making Bitcoin spendable at scale. We are backing this incredible team because they’ve lived the problem, built in the trenches and are now scaling a solution that re-imagines everyday payments in Africa.”
Van Wyk commented on the funds: “It (funding) makes a positive change to our ability to get the message out there that Bitcoin is maturing from a purely investment vehicle to money that can be used for day-to-day and luxury expenses, without having to jump through a series of hoops. Once merchants realise that if their point-of-sale system can display a QR code, they can accept Bitcoin payments, they are generally keen to see how it can work in their business.”
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