Lazerpay, a Nigerian start-up that was established in October 2021 by Emmanuel Njoku, Abdulfatai Suleiman, and Prosper Ubi, has determined to discontinue operations since it’s unable to get enough finance. Njoku introduced the information on April 13 by means of a message that he posted on Twitter. Within the assertion, he expressed his thanks for the relationships that have been created and the affect that Lazerpay had on the cryptocurrency ecosystem. He went on to focus on that the brand new firm had labored very arduous to maintain the lights on, however sadly, that they had reached some extent the place they wanted to shut its doorways.
This announcement comes just a few quick months after Lazerpay introduced layoffs in November 2022. These layoffs have been additionally ascribed to the startup’s failure to safe cash after the withdrawal of a predominant investor. In line with Njoku, regardless of the impediment, Lazerpay has already onboarded greater than 3,000 corporations and dealt with multiple million {dollars} in transactions.
Lazerpay has urged that retailers take their money from the platform earlier than the deadline of April 30, 2023, using the financial institution or cryptocurrency fee choices. This can allow a clean transition for Lazerpay’s prospects. The corporate has declared that it’s going to refocus its efforts on fixing any unresolved issues. As well as, the corporate is within the strategy of soliciting proposals from different companies concerned about buying its mental property.
Lazerpay was developed to encourage widespread use of cryptocurrencies and to help firms in accepting stablecoin funds from purchasers positioned everywhere in the globe. The failure of the enterprise to get enough finance in the end resulted within the firm’s demise, which represents a giant loss for the African cryptocurrency market.
The closure of Lazerpay is the latest occasion in a string of disruptions which have occurred within the African cryptocurrency market. Paxful, a peer-to-peer market for Bitcoin transactions, additionally introduced final week that it could be closing its doorways. However this, just a few crypto fee corporations on the continent, corresponding to NairaEx, which is a functioning Bitcoin alternate in Nigeria, are however doing slightly nicely.
Even though Lazerpay has shut down, Njoku and the opposite co-founders of the corporate proceed to have a constructive outlook on the way forward for cryptocurrencies in Nigeria and Africa. They’ve expressed their conviction that the African continent has a big quantity of untapped potential for innovation and improvement within the cryptocurrency trade.
