Congo-based startup, Jambo, is building Africa’s web3 user acquisition portal through “learn, play, earn” and has secured $7.5 million in seed funding.
Jambo intends to onboard millions of users to web3 across Africa. This it will do through its applications, according to James Zhang, the company’s co-founder, and CEO.
In November 2021, after realizing the chance to replicate the success of web3 initiatives in Southeast Asia across Africa, he started the company alongside his sister, both Congo-born Chinese.
According to Zhang, Jambo works with telecom carriers to obtain a nearly 70% discount, which it then sells straight to its subscribers at a 50% discount.
“It’s one of our primary user acquisition techniques,” Zhang explained, “where we aim to quadruple every African’s airtime and data.”
Second, Jambo is working with social media businesses to allow users to earn tokens (which can be converted to money) by watching their content on its app.
Last but not least, there are games where you can earn money by playing. There are currently no well-known play-to-earn web3 games from Africa, owing to a lack of infrastructure for creating such through Guilds.
Jambo, according to Zhang, wants to construct such infrastructure.
Since the beginning of the year, Jambo has enrolled over 12,000 students from 15 countries (Morocco, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Uganda, Kenya, Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, DR Congo, Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia, Madagascar, and South Africa) in a curated web3 curriculum that can be completed both online and offline.
Students will be able to explore potential in play-to-earn gaming and decentralized finance, according to the company (DeFi).
Hundreds of ambassadors sign up students at colleges and 600+ physical partner locations where the 10-week programs are offered.
With recent web3 upstarts in Africa, it appears that educating Africa’s young population about web3 and decentralization is a common subject.
The main difference between Zhang’s platform and others is that, while traditional platforms assist Africans save and send money, new upstarts are enhancing users’ income and wealth potentials.
Jambo plans to deploy its beta version in the second quarter and go live in the third quarter.
In order to construct its super app, the 60-man team, which is distributed across Sub-Saharan Africa, Santa Clara, and Shenzhen, received a party round from investors who had previously funded prominent web3 businesses such as Avalanche, Dharma, BlockFi, and Polygon.
Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, Tiger Global, Delphi Ventures, AllianceDAO, DeFiance Capital, Yield Guild Games, and Polygon Studios are among others.
Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder and CEO of Polygon; Santiago R Santos, ex-ParaFi partner; Do Kwon, co-founder and CEO of Terraform Labs; and partner at Delphi Digital Piers Kicks are among the web3 ecosystem’s angel investors.
“Jambo will do in Africa what WeChat did in China.” In a statement, Santiago R Santos, a web3 investor, and former ParaFi partner said, “Excited to back this A+ team in becoming the Web3 super app of the continent.”
