Lazerpay, a Nigerian crypto and Web3 company, has announced its shutdown after failing to raise funds in a recent funding round, according to a statement released by its CEO, Emmanuel Njoku, on April 13. The decision to shut down comes after months of struggling to secure funding, including layoffs in November 2022 due to a lead investor pulling out.
Njoku expressed gratitude for the connections made and the impact Lazerpay has had in the crypto ecosystem but acknowledged that the company was unable to sustain its operations any longer. Njoku founded the company in October 2021 while still a teenager, together with co-founders Abdulfatai Suleiman and Prosper Ubi, with the goal of promoting the use of stablecoins by businesses worldwide.
In an effort to ensure a smooth transition for its users, Lazerpay has advised merchants to withdraw their funds from the platform before April 30, 2023, using the bank or crypto payout options. The company has also stated that it is open to offers from companies interested in purchasing its intellectual property.
Lazerpay's shutdown is the latest in a series of upheavals in the African crypto space, with Paxful, a Bitcoin peer-to-peer marketplace, also announcing its cessation of operations recently. However, some crypto payment startups in Africa, such as NairaEx, a Bitcoin exchange in Nigeria, continue to thrive as mediums for Nigerian traders to buy or sell the country's fiat currency, nairas, for cryptocurrency.
Lazerpay supposedly had more than 3,000 firms signed up and had handled over $1 million in transactions, but it was shut down in the end due to a lack of finance. The company's failure serves as a stark reminder of the difficulties faced by new businesses in the cryptocurrency sector, particularly the requirement for ongoing investment in order to maintain operations and experience growth.
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