Nigerian Crypto startup Lazerpay shuts down after failing to raise funds. The company’s founder and CEO, Njoku Emmanuel, reported the same in an announcement on April 13. Njoku also said that he is open to listening to offers from other companies that might want to acquire their assets. This is a significant backlash for the Nigerian crypto industry.
About Lazerpay
Lazerpay was founded on September 1, 2021, by Abdulfatai Suleiman, Njoku Emmanuel, and Prosper Ubi. It has its headquarters in Greater Philadelphia Area, East Coast, Southern US. The company is dedicated to encouraging creative cryptocurrency payments in order to expose businesses to new options. With a focus on innovation and accessibility, they aim to drive the adoption of cryptocurrencies in Africa and help businesses tap into the potential of this emerging technology.
They received their first funding in November 2021 in a seed round, and the amount was $100,000. The investors were Nestcoin and Musha Ventures. However, it looks like the investors would not be able to make any money back as the company is shutting down its operations. But if its property gets acquired, maybe some of the losses would be recovered.
The company was actually doing quite well with over 3000 merchants in their network. Lazerpay helped these businesses accept stablecoins as a payment medium. Now the exchange has asked the merchants to withdraw their funds from the platform before April 30 2023, after which the platform will be shut down.
Intellectual Property for sale
Lazerpay has requested the community to put forth any offers if they are interested in acquiring the assets of the company. Njoku has also shown interest in selling the domain of Lazerpay and is willing to listen to offers.
In the letter that Lazerpay shared in its tweet, the CEO said, “We welcome offers from companies who are interested in purchasing Lazerpay’s IP and who would like to continue building the future of crypto payments. We are more than happy to talk further about how our technology works, how we can help you set up to build or integrate with it.”
However, we still do not have any news or reports regarding offers that might Lazerpay might have received. It will be interesting to see if any major company is interested in acquiring the assets of the crypto startup.
Reaction from the community
Reports from a tech company, Techcabal, suggest that the African crypto industry is in deep waters. Investors are being very cautious about investing in any African companies. And Lazerpay’s fall could also have been because of the same reason after they laid off employees in Nov 2022 to cut down costs.
The crypto industry is not that happy regarding what has happened with the startup. In the tweet where Lazerpay shared this bad news, a lot of users commented how they were sad to learn about this announcement.
A business owner wrote that he was among the first businesses to integrate with Lazerpay and is rooting for them. Another wrote, “Lazerpay is such a phenomenal product! We’re super proud of the work the team has done so far and are steadily rooting for y’all!”
Another crypto startup Copperx also showed their support, saying that if they can help in any possible way, they would want to. However, it doesn’t seem like Lazerpay will be able to survive unless they miraculously receive huge funding.
What are your thoughts as Nigerian Crypto startup Lazerpay shuts down, failing to raise funds? And do you think it has to do with their African origin? Let us know in the comments below. And if you found our content informative, share it with your family and friends.
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