Nigerian fintech startup, Blueloop, has been accepted into the Y Combinators Winter 2021 batch. The startup will be joining 10 other African startups in the batch and will get access to a $125k seed fund from the US-based accelerator.
The startup has now joined the list of other reputable companies in Nigeria like Paystack, Flutterwave, Kobo 360, Buy coins, etc that passed through the accelerator program.
Founded in 2020 by two undergraduates; Ben Eluan and Osezele Orukpe, the startup built an app called Flux which serves as a subsidiary to Blue loop. The App combines a cryptocurrency wallet and a digital banking app in order to ease cross border payments in Africa. Users can receive crypto from all over the world and instantly convert it to fiat.
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The duo dropped out of school to focus on building their startup and scaling it into a $1 billion company. they are arguably the first set of African founders that are all dropouts to get into Y Combinator and Ben Eluan believes it will open the doors for more young founders on the continent.
The six-month-old startup has 5,000 customers who have transacted over $750,000 in payments volume, growing 40% month-on-month, and has made $25,000 in revenue. This growth happened despite the Central Bank of Nigeria’s clampdown on crypto exchange activities.
According to TechCrunch, what differentiates Flux from other crypto remittance startups lies in the ease and speed of the platform’s transactions, and facilitating payments on Flux is 100x faster than fiat, and is cheaper too. The platform charges $0.50 for every transaction, regardless of the amount.
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The startup, now based in Lagos will be battling with top competitors in the crypto space like Chipper Cash, MFS Africa, BuyCoins, and other crypto startups that are trying to fix cross-border payments.
The startup plans to leverage the funds, the mentorship, and the awesome global network of startups and investors, to build their product into a global product.
What you should know
- In May 2020, Flux got accepted into Pioneer, an accelerator launched by ex-YC partner, Daniel Gross. After the program, Flux raised $77,000 pre-seed investment from different investors like Hustle Fund and Mozilla, among others.
