Afropolitan, a startup that wants to build a digital nation for Africans, has raised pre-seed funding of $2.1 million.
There are over 25 angel investors including Iyinoluwa Aboyeji of Future Africa, Olugbenga Agboola of Flutterwave, Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund, Shola Akinlade of Paystack, Ian Lee of Syndicate, Walter Baddoo of 4DX Ventures, Jason Njoku of IROKOtv, Tobenna Arodiogbu of CloudTrucks, Ngozi Dozie of Carbon, and Dare Obasanjo, Senior Product Manager at Meta.
Hashed, Atlantica Ventures, RallyCap Ventures, Microtraction, and Cultur3 Capital are among the venture capital firms that participated in this round.
Afropolitan co-founder Eche Emole says they want to solve the problem of scarcity that black people face globally, which manifests in an inability to access institutions, money, jobs, and quality living by creating a digital nation that can enable black people worldwide to build abundant lives.
Afropolitan’s digital nation will be built in 4 phases. In the first phase, it will admit people into its community or decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO), with NFTs serving as digital passports.
In the second phase, it will build a super app that will allow people to monitor their holdings, send money to anyone across borders, earn by contributing to the DAO, and buy goods and services from one another.
The next phase, called a “minimum viable state”, will allow it to offer some government services—case in point, help Africans stuck in the Russian-Ukraine crisis.
Afterwards, it intends to push for full-scale sovereignty and acquire physical lands in cities across the world.
Launched in 2016, Afropolitan creates a series of community-led opportunities for Africans and those in the diaspora through travel, events and media. Its events arm — driven by Afrobeats parties, concerts and festivals — made a statement in 2019 when it participated in “The Year of Return” event in Ghana. That year, the number of international travelers to Ghana peaked at 1.13 million, from just under 960,000 in 2018.
