The Celo Africa Web3 Fund Workshop

 

On the Tuesday, 8th November 2022 i had the privilege of attending the Celo Africa Web3 Fund. We had about 50 participants from all over the country to help get us more familair with the Celo Africa Fund for Web3. But what is Web3? Glad you asked! Well Investopedia describes Web3 as the third phase of the evolution of the internet, characterized by decentralization, ubiquity and artificial intelligence. The very well structured event had about three broad phases. The overview of the fund, product use cases and a section that had to do with building on Celo. 

The Celo Team was made up of Daniel Kimotho-Celo Ecosystem lead Kenya, Aliu Musa-Celo Ecosystem Lead Nigeria and Umar Sebyala-Celo Ecosystem Lead Uganda.


Understanding Celo’s Web3 fund


The fund is split up into four major fo us areas. The first is a set of useful impact centered workshopsthat are being done in four countries. Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and South Africa. These are designed as meet and greet networking workshops with fellow Web3 builders and explorers within the startup, Venture Capital and Crypto industry to look into products and investment strategies. It is great to see that Uganda is on the list of countries where The Celo Web3 Fund wishes to focus. The traditional four that have tended to generate the bulk of interest in investment in the Ecosystem have been Kenya, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa. Celo has expanded this list to include Ghana and Uganda which is a good move. 


Second on the list are Strategy Office Hours, these are opportunities to connect with Celo Research and Innovation team to look into the full potential of Web3 product strategies including partners and resources. 


The Third is what is called the Web3 Fund Deal Room with pitch deck sharing for your company as well as getting insights and input from Celo Ecosystem Growth teams and investors. 


Finally Investor meetings and product launches where developers can meet with investors for potential investment opportunties to explore product launch strategies. 


How the Celo’s Web3 Fund works 


There are four phases to the process:

  1. The Application and Nomination Phase-Prospective Web3 companies apply to the fund and are nominated by their VCs. Successful companies arevthen invitec to the half day workshop on Web3 product and investment .
  2. Workshops: Product and Investment-workshops hosted and conducted by Web3 contributors and investors focusing on product market fit, user experiences, token economy models and investment strategies. 
  3. Alliance onboarding/ Celo Camp Accelerator-join over 200 companies building on Celo to create conditions where everyone can prosper. Alliance members shape the direction of the network and community. 
  4. Product Development: Technical and legal support-Build Web3 enabled prodcuts through the Celo Africa developers Network. Get legal support through Celo Jura. Celo’s Global Legal Network.


Celo Web3 Fund investors and Technical Partners


These include Unicorn Growth Capital, Tatum, Echo VC, Flori and Ape Unit.


The Celo Alliance for Prosperity

The Celo Alliance for propserity has grown to over 100 members. It has a number of initiatives Social impact collective, Connect the world, Defi for the people, Creative studio

and Climate collective. These are initiatives under the Celo foundation just like the alliance for prosperity is. 

The Alliance for Prosperity is a new force for good as it seeks to harness the power of blockchain and digital currencies to promote financial inclusion (from blog.celo.org). Since the Alliance is composed of such diverse organizations it will also be doing many different things. Use cases will vary widely, including wallets and exchanges, tools for validators and developers, education and microwages. Our goal is to provide on-ramps that will power mobile and online work, enable faster and affordable remittances, reduce the operational complexities of delivering humanitarian aid, facilitate payments, and enable microlending. We will be working with underserved communities and geographies, trying to empower as many people as possible. Every use case addresses a real need that real people face by providing a real solution. As long as you have a phone, we want you to have access to the financial services you need.

Some of Celo Alliance members.


Alliance members currently include some leading names like Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase, Mercy Corps or Utrust and eSolidar. But that’s just the start. The full list is comprised of: Abra, Alice, AlphaWallet, Anchorage, Appen, Ayannah, B12, BC4NB (Blockchain for the Next Billion), BeamAndGo, Bidali, Bison Trails, Blockchain Academy Mexico, Blockchain.com, Blockchain for Humanity (b4h), Blockchain for Social Impact (BSIC), Blockdaemon, Carbon, cLabs, CloudWalk Inc, Cobru, Coinplug, Cryptio, Cryptobuyer, CryptoSavannah, Fintech4Good, Flexa, Gitcoin, GiveDirectly, Grameen Foundation, GSMA, KeshoLabs, Laboratoria, Ledn, Maple, Metadium, Moon, MoonPay, Pipol, Pngme, Polychain, Project Wren, SaldoMX, Semicolon Africa, The Giving Block, Utrust, Upright, Yellow Card, and 88i.


Why Celo? 


Product Use Cases and partnerships. 


Save

Send

Earn

Lend

Give

Pay and Accept


DeFi powers Web3 financial products and services

DeFi refers to an ecosystem of smart contracts that allow participants to offer and access financial services in a peer-to-peer format, without relying on traditional intermediaries like banks, credit unions, or brokerages. It does this using dApps.


There were talks by partners in the Ecosystem such as Binusu, Crypto Savanah, Kanzu Code, Cashout, WatchGuard. Intetesting insights were shared about the history of the Crypto landscape in Uganda, Regulation and the Role played by the Bank of Uganda in the same. The importance of mainstreaming gender in technology and innovation and the new drives towards Web3. 


We were advised for example to think about getting Valora. A wallet that supports Celo and that can help users earn on interest for their Celo based currencies. 



The Panel-the discussions held by the panel covered many areas. First one of the attendees baptized the panel with the title of God Fathers! He felt that htey had been pioneers in the industry and that they should therefroe be allowed to play the role of God Father. This they quickly dismissed sayiing that all they had tried to do was facilitate a movement that was inevitable and boound to grow. All panelists were keen to emphasize the need to understand the local economy and try to solve with the local economy in mind. We were cautioned against trying to think that we were in the heart of California. This is challenging because most of the models that are used with regards to the Ecosystem are built with Silicon Valley in mind. It was great to interact with some of the people behind coinpesa and the mind behind @Muda_HQ (an over the counter crypto exchange DeFi and NFT Engine and @murcom. We were advised never to come accross as too desperate when we are engaging potential funders. The importance of traction was emphasized. Also the value of building when in bear marktets as a strategy to ensure that your business has lasting power. Noah Balyensanvu of CryptoSavanah Suleiman Murunga of Muda and Tumusiime Reginald Capital Savvy were the panelists. 



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