The CEO and Founder of Lazerpay, Njoku Emmanuel, has announced that his company, which focused on web3 and cryptocurrency, will be closing down. The shutdown is coming months after he revealed that the company had been facing difficulties in securing funding.
In a statement posted on Twitter by the founder Njoku Emmanuel on the 13th of April, it was revealed that Lazerpay had been grappling to survive due to its inability to secure funding. He noted that they tried to “keep the lights on for as long as they could, they’re now at a point where they need to shut down.”
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This development follows the startup’s decision to downsize in November 2022, however, these were not enough.
The company has urged its customers to transfer their funds from the platform via either the bank or crypto payout options before April 30, 2023, which is the scheduled date for the cessation of operations. In the announcement of its shutdown, the startup disclosed that it had facilitated payments for over 3,000 merchants in various currencies, including Naira, cedis, Kenyan Shillings, Rwandan Shillings, US Dollars, and UAE Dirham.
Additionally, Njoku stated that the company was open to continuing its mission of driving financial inclusion and interoperability in Africa by selling Lazerpay’s IP to anyone interested in utilizing it to create the next generation of cryptocurrency payments.
About Lazerpay
Established in 2021, the startup created an API that enabled developers to integrate cryptocurrency payments into their platforms, thereby empowering merchants to receive payments in digital currencies. Throughout its existence, Lazerpay provided its services to more than 3,000 businesses. Before its closure, the startup had received funding from investors such as Shola Akinlade of Paystack, Nuwa Capital, Voltron Capital, and Nestcoin.
Njoku Emmanuel who was the CEO of the company is a 21-year-old software engineer from Port Harcourt, Rivers State. At just 19 years of age, Njoku devised a solution to address a persistent issue in the African international payments industry. Although his first company has not hit it as anticipated, it remains to be seen what lies ahead for Njoku Emmanuel.
The African Crypto Industry
Lazerpay is not the only African crypto startup to take a hit as part of the domino effect from FTX’s crash last year. Last year, Nestcoin, a Nigerian cryptocurrency startup, found itself in a precarious situation as it had invested its investor funds in FTX, which subsequently crashed. This left the company without any means to continue its operations, resulting in staff layoffs and its CEO forgoing a salary.
Additionally, on April 4th, Ray Youssef, the CEO of Paxful, a global peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange, announced that the company would be suspending its operations.
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He noted in his public statement, “Today, Paxful will be suspending its marketplace. We are not sure if it will come back.”
Ray Youssef had earlier claimed in 2022 that Nigerians were the largest users of Paxful with over 1.5 million Nigerian users and over $1.5 billion in trade volume.
