Cardano, through its accelerator, AdaVerse, has announced that it has invested an undisclosed amount into a seed funding round for AfriGuild, a blockchain gaming guild that also runs a DAO.
AfriGuild, which operates in gaming, education and community building, is in a mission to onboard 100 million Africans into Web3 over the next 5 years.
The investment comes a few days after Adaverse Investment manager, William Phelps, visited Benin for a blockchain and cybersecurity conference.
Speaking about the investment, Shogo Ishida, Co-CEO, EMURGO Africa, Middle East & Africa, said:
“Africa is socially communal and Afriguild is building the bridge to financial breakthrough by connecting young Africans to the emerging Web3 world.”
– Co-CEO, EMURGO Africa
Launched in September 2021, Adaverse aims to support the growth of African startups on the Cardano blockchain with the following sectors highlighted:
- Web3 dApps in DeFi
- NFTs
- Gaming
- Metaverse tools
Interested parties can apply for their accelerator here.
In a statement, Adaverse said:
“Afriguild started out in 2021 as a social gaming enterprise that ensures top-rated Web3 games are accessible and profitable for Africans.”
– AdaVerse
While GameFi is being adopted across the world, Cardano noted that Africa lags behind because ‘the majority of Web3 games with high yield assets are not popular in Africa due to the high cost of entry and complex gaming environment.’
AfriGuild’s goals is to address the above issue by ‘aggregating the top games and simplifying them, as it takes the opportunity to create a community on social and real life channels.’
So far, AfriGuild has 3,000 members on its Discord and is said to be ‘actively creating in-person blockchain communities across tertiary institutions in Africa.’
AfriGuild, which has a presence in 9 cities in Nigeria, plans to expand into 4 African countries by the end of 2022.
The press release by Adaverse also pointed out that the GameFi industry could be worth $314 billion by 2026, with the continent’s 747 million mobile users predicted to play a big role in gaming adoption.
