| EMURGO has invested a 7x figure undisclosed amount as a seed investment to Adanian Labs through its newly launched EMURGO Africa investment entity |
| NAIROBI, Kenya, October 15, 2021/ — EMURGO is the official commercial arm of Cardano blockchain; This investment is part of EMURGO Africa, a subsidiary of EMURGO’s new $100 million Cardano ecosystem investment vehicle; The undisclosed funding will support Adanian Labs (www.AdanianLabs.io) with its mission to build 300 tech startups across Africa. Adanian Labs, a pan African venture studio today announced its partnership with EMURGO (https://emurgo.io), the official investment arm of Cardano (https://cardano.org) blockchain to scale tech startups in Africa and grow the Cardano ecosystem. EMURGO has invested a 7x figure undisclosed amount as a seed investment to Adanian Labs through its newly launched (https://bit.ly/3aGt9Lu) EMURGO Africa investment entity. This investment is focused on achieving one of the goals of Cardano which is to bring financial and educational empowerment via its blockchain platform to the billions who lack these opportunities. Founded in 2020, Adanian Labs is focused on building a platform where African Tech start-ups can thrive and access all key resources that allow them to grow sustainably. The lab provides all the critical support start-ups would need to launch and scale in the continent including, access to funding, technology development, technical support, go to market strategies and partnerships. John Kamara, Adanian Labs CEO said “We are extremely encouraged by the partnership with EMURGO Africa as their vision to build a thriving technology ecosystem in Africa is well aligned with ours. We aim to build 300 tech powered, impact driven start-ups by 2025. We are passionate in our drive to create “CAMELS” strong, resilient companies, entrepreneurs and youth who will sustain African economies, even with limited resources. We coined #TheCamelTheory knowing the challenges in terms of equity that Africa has in its spin towards the fourth industrial revolution (4IR).” As a venture studio, Adanian Labs uses its unique positioning to create and spearhead the sharing economy for African start-ups, by building a socio-economic ecosystem revolving around the sharing of resources, creation, production, distribution, trade and consumption. “As the start-up that builds start-ups we apply lean start-up principles in processes, learning, iteration, scaling and innovating solutions. Our aim is to build solutions across SDG’s impact goals that will power Africa economies while creating massive impact to the youth.” Further stated Kamara. “This partnership with EMURGO Africa will allow us to forge more efficient collaborations that will enable us to build quicker, scale faster and optimize capitalization, creating a win win benefit to all our partners in the sharing nature of our growing ecosystem.” concluded Kamara. Ken Kodama, EMURGO CEO said: “We are more focused than ever on accelerating the development of Cardano’s ecosystem with a rich mix of decentralized services catering towards a global community that is increasing in overall blockchain awareness including in Africa. EMURGO Africa is especially dedicated to delivering financial and educational empowerment opportunities on the continent by providing the capital and strategic partnerships necessary for local startups to scale rapidly and bring new solutions to Cardano. Our partnership with Adanian Labs provides us with a great framework to launch in Africa.” The Adanian Labs – EMURGO Africa partnership signifies a new dawn for the African technology evolution that aims to foster private sector growth and see a burgeoning middle class emerge. Tech startups interested in joining the Adanian Labs can apply through the Adanian Labs website – www.AdanianLabs.io and join its various communities across digital social platforms. About Adanian Labs: Adanian Labs is a venture building studio with a mission to build, incubate and launch impact driven technology companies and entrepreneurs working to solve some of Africa’s most pertinent challenges. Adanian Labs uses smart technologies (AI and Blockchain) as building blocks to create solutions that are impact focused, commercially viable and scalable across Africa and other parts of the world. Adanian Labs has built 15 startups including in AgriTech, HealthTech, WomenTech, FinTech, AdTech, SmeTech and other industries; and has launched 2 centers of excellencies – AI Center of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence and The Africa Block Chain Center for Blockchain Technology. Adanian Labs is headquartered in Nairobi Kenya, with a presence in Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, Zambia, Swaziland and the United Kingdom. |