/Graveyard/Bundle Africa

Bundle Africa

Social payments app.

🇳🇬 Nigeria Crypto & Web3Rebranded or absorbed

Epitaph

“Here lies Bundle Africa's exchange. For three years it let Africans send, save, and trade cash and crypto, moving some fifty million dollars a month. As the continent's crypto market cooled, it closed the trading floor and moved its people to Cashlink. The rails remain.”

Overview

Born: 2021 (Year)
Died: July 2023 (Month)
Lifespan: 2 years
Fate: Rebranded or absorbed
Headquarters: 🇳🇬 Nigeria
Category: Crypto & Web3, Fintech
Stage at death: Seed
Primary cause: Acquisition or strategy change
Contributing causes: Regulation, External shock

Death certificate

Timeline

2020Bundle Africa founded
Yele Bademosi and Emmanuel Babalola launch a social payments app for cash and crypto
2020Cashlink launched
Bundle spins up Cashlink, a P2P payments infrastructure product
July 2023Exchange shut down
Bundle Africa ceases its crypto exchange/social payments operations to focus on Cashlink amid an African crypto downturn.

Autopsy report

Why did Bundle Africa shut down?

Nigerian crypto/social-payments app Bundle Africa shut down its crypto exchange service in July 2023 amid a broader downturn in Africa's crypto industry, restructuring to focus resources on Cashlink, its peer-to-peer Web3 payments infrastructure product.

What Bundle Africa attempted

Offer a social payments app enabling Africans to send, save and trade cash and cryptocurrency, aiming for open, inclusive financial access across the continent.

What worked

Grew to roughly 50,000 monthly active users and processed about 3 million transactions with around $50M in monthly transaction volume over three years; its Cashlink P2P infrastructure processed 1.7 million transactions in its first year.

What happened

After operating its crypto exchange/social payments app for three years amid a broader slump in Africa's crypto industry, Bundle Africa announced in July 2023 that it would cease its exchange/trading operations and redirect resources to Cashlink, its P2P payments infrastructure product for Web3 and blockchain users.

Lessons for future builders

A consumer crypto exchange lives and dies by market cycles it cannot control. When the cycle turns, concentrate resources on the piece with durable usage rather than subsidising a fading trading product.