Adaverse, co-created by EMURGO Africa, participates in investment in Momint
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Adaverse, co-created by EMURGO Africa, participates in investment in Momint
Adaverse, co-created by EMURGO Africa, participates in Momint investment to expand Cardano NFT ecosystem applications in African markets
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAdaverse is a Web3 incubation investment fund co-created by EMURGO, focused on accelerating Cardano ecosystem adoption in African markets. Adaverse recently announced its investment in Momint, a Web3 marketplace that enables all users to easily invest in cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Adaverse joined Outlier Ventures, Mountain Partners, Rob Hersov, and simple.Capital in Momint’s highly competitive seed funding round.
What is Momint?
Momint is an NFT content marketplace that offers users a secure, ad-free trading experience while protecting personal privacy. It provides a seamless bridge from Web2 to Web3, enabling users to discover, discuss, and acquire digital assets. Beyond minting and trading NFTs, Momint is a comprehensive social network for digital assets where users can follow their favorite creators, showcase their collections, learn about Web3, join community discussions, launch projects, and trade digital assets.
Founded at the end of 2020 by tech entrepreneurs Ahren Posthumous and Adam Romyn with support from investor Rob Hersov, Momint builds on their prior success developing an app that simplified South Africa's government lockdown regulations—reaching over 8 million users rapidly and earning multiple awards. Now, they are applying this expertise to Web3, aiming to simplify the seemingly complex world of Web3 and blockchain for the broader public through Momint.
Why Momint?
NFTs and the metaverse are transforming the world as we know it. In 2021, total NFT sales reached $17.6 billion, a 21,350% increase from the previous year. Collins Dictionary even named "NFT" its 2021 Word of the Year, underscoring how widespread and significant NFTs have become. However, African participation in the NFT and metaverse space has been relatively slow. Despite Nigeria having the highest cryptocurrency adoption rate globally, it ranked only sixth in NFT search interest. Even though African consumers and investors are increasingly interested in NFTs, existing markets have yet to meet their needs.
Complex cross-chain transactions, high gas fees on major blockchains like Ethereum, and the high cost of NFTs themselves (the average NFT price was $807.52 in 2021) have made the NFT market intimidating for many African users. The NFT market is projected to reach $231 billion by 2030, and lowering entry barriers would enable African consumers and investors to significantly benefit from future growth.
Momint aims to play a pivotal role in attracting the next million users to Web3. Its mobile-first NFT marketplace is designed to be extremely user-friendly, allowing even those without prior crypto experience to get started easily. With affordable platform fees, Momint seeks to lower the barrier to entry and meet the needs of users in emerging economies such as Africa. Additionally, to boost adoption, the team has formed strategic partnerships with several community-driven startups expected to bring hundreds of thousands of users to the platform in the near term—including Scoin (empowering rare community ownership in South African history) and the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation (Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation).
With Adaverse’s support, Momint is expanding its marketplace to serve users on Cardano. Momint is committed to building sustainable and interoperable solutions, which is why Cardano stands out as its ideal base layer blockchain. Built as an open-source platform delivering decentralized applications to make financial services accessible to all, Cardano also boasts a carbon footprint less than 0.01% that of Bitcoin—making it the top choice for Momint’s developers and environmentally conscious users alike. Recently, the Cardano community celebrated its fifth anniversary. We believe Cardano’s large and growing global community will provide Momint with a vast potential user base.
Shogo Ishida, Co-CEO of EMURGO Africa Middle East & Africa, said: "The next generation of Web3 users won’t be crypto-natives but Web2 users who find simple ways to access blockchain services. Momint is designed to deliver exactly that—a simple, affordable way for Africans to begin exploring the NFT market."
Momint CEO and Co-founder Ahren Posthumus said: "Partnering with Adaverse makes perfect sense for us. We share a common vision of enhancing Web3 user experiences within meaningful ecosystems, particularly across emerging markets like Africa and Asia. Today, we’re the number one Web3 marketplace in Africa, and we’re excited to integrate deeper into the Cardano NFT ecosystem. Cardano’s lightning-fast transaction speeds and near-zero gas fees make it the ideal blockchain for Momint. Throughout our product development journey, Adaverse’s deep expertise in the Cardano blockchain will be invaluable."
Vincent Li, Founding Partner at Adaverse, added: "Africa’s Cardano ecosystem is one of the most exciting spaces across any blockchain. We’re proud to support the Momint team in expanding into this space, and we firmly believe Momint has the potential to attract millions of users from Africa and beyond, creating real financial opportunities for people in emerging economies."
About Adaverse
Adaverse is a global incubation investment fund for Cardano, launched jointly by EMURGO and Everest Ventures Group, aimed at helping the next generation of Web3 startups from Africa and Asia achieve global success. Adaverse provides incubation resources to help startups build sustainable businesses across Africa, Asia, and worldwide.
About Adaverse
- Official Homepage: adaverse.co
- Twitter: @Adaverse_Acc
- Facebook: Adaverse Accelerator
- Instagram: @adaverse_acc
- Medium: Adaverse Accelerator ; Adaverse Asia
- LinkedIn: @Adaverse
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