Inside the Lazerpay Shutdown: A Conversation with Njoku Emmanuel

05/25/23 • 44 min

In today's episode, we welcome Lazerpay’s Njoku Emmanuel to the show.

In April 2023, Lazerpay announced that it would be shutting its doors in April of 2023. The startup, which was founded at the height of the crypto bull market in 2021, and to much fanfare Njoku who was just 19 years old at the time, promised to bring seamless crypto payments to Africa.

But since it shut down, a lot has been said in the ecosystem about the company and its shortcomings, so we wanted to get the story directly from Njoku himself.

00:00 - Intro
02:49 - Lazerpay's founding story.
05:51 - Pre-seed round, headcount growth, initial traction.
09:12 - Bear market impact.
14:59 - The issue of Njoku's age.
19:55 - Building with transparency.
22:57 - On the decision to shutdown.
34:48 - Njoku's lessons.
40:56 - The future of crypto in Africa.
42:18 - What's next?

crypto@scale is sponsored by Ripple.

Across Africa, Ripple is partnering with local financial institutions and fintechs to bring the benefits of better cross-border remittances to the region. To learn more and get in contact with the Ripple team, head over to ripple.com.

In today's episode, we welcome Lazerpay’s Njoku Emmanuel to the show.

But since it shut down, a lot has been said in the ecosystem about the company and its shortcomings, so we wanted to get the story directly from Njoku himself.

crypto@scale is sponsored by Ripple.

Previous Episode

Bringing DeFi Lending to the Real World

While DeFi, or decentralized finance, has seen a volatile rise in adoption within the crypto ecosystem, the big question in our context is to what extent this model and technology can be adopted and adapted for lending use cases across emerging markets, where there is an over $100 billion credit gap, according to the IFC.

To explore that question further, we're joined in this episode by Cheng Cheng, co-founder of the DeFi protocol Jia, and George Mosomi, COO of the Safi Protocol, and a founding member of the Africa DeFi Alliance.

00:00 - Intro.
03:02 - Introducing Cheng Cheng, Co-founder of Jia.
05:32 - Introducing George Mosomi, Co-founder & COO, Safi Protocol, and founding member of the Africa DeFi Alliance.
08:19 - What does the credit landscape look like on the African continent?
17:57 - How does DeFi address Africa's lending challenges?
26:42 - How do traditional debt capital markets work versus DeFi?
34:21 - Who are the lenders and borrowers in DeFi?
40:05 - What are the challenges for DeFi protocols lending in the "real world"?
49:31 - What else needs to happen to see DeFi lending at scale?
56:35 - George's recommendations.
57:09 - Cheng's recommendations.

This season of crypto@scale is sponsored by Ripple.

Follow crypto@scale on twitter: https://twitter.com/crypto@scale

Next Episode

Wallets & Crypto Adoption with Nestcoin's Yele Bademosi & WalletConnect's Will White

In today’s episode, we’re joined by Yele Bademosi, the Co-founder and CEO of Nestcoin, and Will White, the COO of WalletConnect, to talk about a critical piece of crypto infrastructure: Wallets.

When talking about wallets here, we’re talking about non-custodial wallets - where users have full access and control over their private keys, unlike a custodial wallet which relies on and trusts third parties.

In the context of web3, we’re excited by the opportunities enabled by connecting a wallet and a user’s tokens or transaction history to a decentralized application. At the same time, we hear a lot about user experience challenges in the crypto ecosystem and wallets, of course, are central to that conversation.

crypto@scale is sponsored by Ripple.

03:11 - Intro to Yele, Nestcoin and Onboard.
04:05 - Intro to Will and WalletConnect.
06:45 - WalletConnect as web3 infrastructure.
11:04 - The UX challenges with non-custodial wallets.
22:48 - The question of localization in the global crypto sector.
27:40 - The crypto ecosystem’s focus on Africa.
38:39 - Use cases.
50:13 - Follow Yele on Twitter.
50:36 - Follow Will on Twitter.
51:01 - Follow crypto@scale on Twitter.