The Yellow Card Team
Yellow Card has secured a $33 million Series C funding round to scale operations and expand its network. This latest round brings the startup’s total funding to $88 million. Previously, it announced a $15 million Series A in 2021 and raised $40 million in a Series B round in 2023.
Yellow Card, which boasts of being the largest and first licensed stablecoin on-/off-ramp platform in Africa, said Polychain Capital, Block, Inc., Winklevoss Capital, Third Prime Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Galaxy Ventures, Blockchain Coinvestors, and Hutt Capital also invested in the Series C round. It added that the funding will also allow it to develop new products, strengthen its team and systems, and continue to lead engagement with regulators across the continent.
Yellow Card, founded in Nigeria in 2019, is a fintech company that operates in 20 countries and facilitates more than $3 billion in transactions across the continent. It offers businesses of all sizes with secure and cost-effective methods to buy and sell USDT, USDC, and PYUSD via their local currency directly and through our Payments API.
In 2022, the company reportedly became the first cryptocurrency company in Africa to be granted a Virtual Asset Service Provider licence to operate in Botswana. The following year, the fintech partnered with Block, the US fintech company behind the Cash App and Square, facilitating cross-border payments between 16 African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa.
In January 2024, Yellow Card partnered with Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, to provide easy access to USDC and digital assets in 20 African countries, allowing Coinbase wallet users in Africa to make payments in their local currency via local bank transfers and mobile money. The integration also provides a more streamlined and enhanced customer experience and a hassle-free KYC.
Today, Yellow Card works with about 30,000 businesses across Africa and internationally, helping them with payments and treasury management, primarily through stablecoins.
“The future of payments lies in fast, affordable rails for everyone, powered by open networks,” said Aleks Larsen, general partner at Blockchain Capital. “We couldn’t be more excited to back Yellow Card as they bring Africa on-chain with stablecoins.”
Sub-Saharan Africa lags behind the rest of the world in crypto volume, accounting for under 3% of the total transactions performed between July 2023 and 2024. However, the region has more practical and compelling use cases for crypto than the West. Nigeria, for instance, has the second highest crypto adoption globally; Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa are in the top 30, according to a recent report by Chainalysis.
Stablecoins, particularly, have become the center of utility in Africa’s crypto economy. The reason for this is that most African countries have highly volatile local currencies and limited access to the U.S. dollar. Stablecoins, pegged to the dollar, such as USDT and USDC, offer business and retail customers a way to store value by hedging against inflation and currency devaluation and facilitating international payments and cross-border trade.
According to Yellow Card’s founder and CEO, Chris Maurice, the utility of stablecoins and demand for its technology from businesses moving larger sums has contributed to Yellow Card’s transaction volumes surging from $1.7 billion early last year to over $3 billion. As a result, the company’s revenue, which it earns via spread between currency prices, has increased sevenfold since January 2023, now “well into eight figures.”
