Launching LAVA
Backing Africa's leading startups in Web3 and frontier tech
Africa is positioned to drive the most practical and scalable Web3 applications globally. These innovations are already reshaping entire economies, finance, and trust - with payments and international trade in major African economies increasingly relying on stablecoins.
The transformative trajectory of Web3 is a few steps shorter in Africa than anywhere else in the world. This became quickly evident when I started Borderless Africa years ago, in the trenches with founders building for Africa’s market needs. These founders have a clear goal: to build products and services that offer lasting utility for retail users and businesses in ways incumbent players aren’t able to. Their work is turning into the plumbing of a new economy.
Through Borderless, a public goods initiative, we focused on nurturing soil – creating fertile conditions for innovation by bridging global and local talent, research, and technologies.
From this foundation, magma was born - a bi-annual founder program that has become a key coordination point for founders building Web3 tools in Africa. Today, 40+ startups within magma are building finance and trust tools at the leading edge of crypto adoption. Instead of rebuilding banks the old way, they are breaking down the functions of a sophisticated financial system, and creating modular, composable legos that work together.
Capital is another coordination tool and a powerful force in scaling these solutions.
Enter LAVA
LAVA is an early-stage venture fund backing exceptional founders who are building foundational infrastructure for Africa’s economy. We make thematic bets in simple finance and trust.
Simple financial products and services represent the financial plumbing that economies rely on to grow, both for retail and business users. These include payments, stablecoins, on/off ramps, insurance, savings, credit, escrow, treasury, and insurance services. We believe there is an open field for highly scalable products in any of these categories across Africa that offer comprehensive and sophisticated user-centric services.
Tools that reduce trust frictions, such as identity, reputation, and verifications, unlock significant value and create room for new economic activities. We believe there is room to build tools that solve for coordination in the traditional economies, while also opening up the crypto economy to a much wider user base.
This thesis is built on Africa's unique position in the global economy, and the opportunity to build companies that can scale to other emerging economies around the world.
Why Africa, Why Now?
Africa represents unprecedented opportunity: 1.5 billion people, doubling in a generation; the world's youngest population (median age 19); the fastest-growing economies; and accelerating tech adoption. But beyond statistics, what's happening on the ground is more compelling.
Web2 innovations like mobile money laid a strong foundation, with 80 billion mobile money transactions worth USD $1.1 trillion happening in Sub Saharan Africa last year. Yet, when it comes to regional and global integration, these systems quickly hit scaling limits due to global banking restrictions, liquidity fragmentation, and high costs to serve the “unbanked”.
The first crypto wave, driven by centralized exchanges, proved the demand - users repurposed trading platforms for banking services. While the rest of the world debates crypto use cases, 5%-15% of people in major African economies are already using crypto tools to solve real financial challenges such as payments and savings. For example, stablecoins accounted for 43% of Africa’s transaction volumes in 2024.
Now, a new generation of startups is processing billions in stablecoin transactions, building market-specific financial tools for businesses and individuals alike. They're building the technical infrastructure, distribution channels, and liquidity these markets need – and they're succeeding.
What excites us most are the emerging solutions: user-centric applications bridging traditional and crypto economies, finance infrastructures built for country specific contexts, and innovations that overcome existing trust barriers.
Utility continues to be the biggest usage driver, so startups in Africa are building with strong fundamentals. Without entrenched legacy institutions that have saturated our markets, Africa offers a low barrier to entry where startups can reach significant scale quickly. Just as mobile money became embedded in African economic life, these Web3 solutions are becoming core infrastructure, unlocking new economic activities that weren’t possible otherwise.
Early Momentum
This is why we launched LAVA. We invest $100k - $500k in early stage startups, where we meet founders in the trenches, and play hands-on roles in building and scaling the ecosystem.
In just a few months, we've backed 9 startups that collectively processed over $1.6B USD last year, growing at 300%+ YoY with hundreds of thousands of daily active users. Check out our portfolio here.
And this is just the beginning. More founders are building everything from local currency stablecoins to user friendly credit services, to entirely new financial coordination tools that reimagine ancient community practices in the context of shared, global ledgers. Once founders refine their products in Africa, many are expanding to other emerging economies worldwide.
Building Soil, Growing Forests
Our approach is deliberate: LAVA deploys capital strategically to back exceptional startups building scalable financial and trust infrastructures.
magma provides the coordination and support network founders need to succeed. As an independent initiative with a broad scope and surface area, magma serves as an experimental ground for new innovations and space to grow talent.
Together, they're creating both the building blocks of a new financial system and the environment for builders to thrive.
Our Partners
The LAVA vision is backed by partners who bring more than just capital.
Our founding LPs include industry leaders Brian Armstrong (Coinbase founder & CEO), Fred Ehrsam and Matt Huang (Paradigm founders), alongside founders of Notion, Centrifuge, Base, Polygon, Celo, Huobi, Nonce, TADA, and more.
This foundation is strengthened by strategic investors spanning market leading VCs, hedge funds, multi-family offices, sovereign wealth fund managers, market makers, bank executives, core developers, and researchers.
80% of our backers are startup founders themselves, with the majority having built billion-dollar ventures and protocols.
Through these carefully curated relationships and our global fund partners, LAVA portfolio companies gain access to unmatched resources for each stage of their journey.
Join the Momentum
We’re not just building a portfolio - we’re helping shape the foundation of tomorrow’s economy. As a hands-on team, we bring founder operator experience and strong technical expertise to support startups in meaningful ways. We are motivated to support generational businesses, and we strive to be the best partners oriented towards long-term success.
If you're an early stage founder reshaping finance and trust in Africa, or an investor who sees what we see, Andy and I would like to hear from you!
The future is being built at the frontier, and LAVA is here to fuel it.