Since becoming a member of Crypto Valley VC (CV VC), a Swiss-based enterprise capital agency that backs blockchain-based startups, as Head of Funding for Africa in November 2024, Jarryd Kennedy has been on the centre of the agency’s push to identify companies utilizing blockchain expertise to unravel on a regular basis issues throughout fintech, funds, and information infrastructure on the continent.
Kennedy’s profession earlier than CV VC started in funding banking, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and personal fairness throughout London, New York, and South Africa. His expertise provides him a dealmaker’s self-discipline and a technology-first lens, serving to him establish use circumstances the place blockchain reduces friction, improves belief and builds actual financial infrastructure quite than hype.
In 2022, CV VC launched a $20 million Africa Blockchain Fund, which has invested in 13 early-stage Web3 startups throughout Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, and Ghana, together with Nigerian podcast-hosting platform Jamit, South African crypto funding startup Altify, Kenyan Web3 agritech Shamba Information, and South African neobank Kasi.
The agency’s funding technique writes direct cheques and backs early-stage startups from its accelerator. By way of CV Labs, CV VC selects 7–9 startups to take part in a cohort every year, offering them with mentorship and progress technique consultations. It backs practically all the chosen startups with $135,000 in funding in return for a 7% convertible be aware. It additionally writes $500,000 follow-on cheques for its portfolio startups.
After witnessing African startups’ struggles to entry extra capital and infrastructure for progress, the VC agency adjusted its take fee to a 6% fairness by means of debt, rising its ticket measurement to $150,000. As of October 2025, the agency claimed greater than half of the startups in its portfolio have raised follow-on funding.
Circle Ventures, the funding arm of the US-based issuer of the USDC stablecoin, is among the many exterior backers of CV VC’s Africa Blockchain fund, signalling international curiosity within the agency’s thesis.
I spoke with Kennedy for this week’s Ask an Investor to know his profession, what it takes to guide CV VC’s African staff, and international investor urge for food for African blockchain merchandise.
This interview has been flippantly edited for readability.
What introduced you into Web3 enterprise capital, and which previous roles mattered most?
My entry into the Web3 enterprise capital ecosystem has been formed by a decade of expertise throughout funding banking, M&A, and personal fairness, with roles spanning London, New York, and South Africa. The majority of my profession has been at Deutsche Financial institution, gaining publicity to Telco, Media and Know-how (TMT) throughout capital markets and M&A.
Over time, I moved into non-public fairness with Convergence Companions, a pan-African non-public fairness agency targeted on digital infrastructure. There, I led and supported investments into expertise and telecom companies throughout markets like Rwanda, South Africa, Kenya, and Malawi. That have was pivotal as a result of it gave me a deep appreciation for the way expertise can drive inclusion and improvement in rising markets.
Importantly, all through my profession, there was an everlasting deal with expertise: I’ve at all times seen it as a device to revolutionise monolithic, legacy programs, enabling the creation of extra environment friendly outcomes. That’s what finally drew me to Web3: I noticed blockchain as an evolution within the international expertise stack that would allow new buildings for decentralised possession, environment friendly worth alternate, clear governance, and the removing of intermediaries, thereby decreasing boundaries to entry and creating completely new financial fashions.
At CV VC, I lead our enterprise investments throughout Africa, making use of that very same technology-oriented lens to early-stage startups which can be constructing transformative real-world options by utilising blockchain expertise.
What does being CV VC’s Head of Funding for Africa imply from an operational lens?
At CV VC, no two days are the identical. We’re a Swiss-headquartered enterprise capital (VC) agency with a world footprint, and though we function in a decentralised method, we keep tightly related by means of day by day staff calls, cross-functional initiatives, and in-person engagements.
On a typical day, I cut up my time throughout three areas: pipeline, portfolio, and buyers. On the pipeline, it’s all about journey, conferences, and networking, to allow relationship-building with the perfect startups and founders. Thereafter, we consider funding pitches and assess new alternatives by means of a data-driven lens to benchmark their efficiency.
On the portfolio aspect, I work carefully with founders throughout our African funding portfolio, with a mixture of relationship-building, hands-on help, and facilitating connections to different ecosystem contributors. Lastly, on the investor entrance, we’re constantly engaged with buyers to report on progress with the objective of leveraging investor experience to bolster that progress, making a flywheel of worth creation throughout the ecosystem.
Throughout all three areas, staying sharp on market traits and rising utility is essential. This encompasses diving into information, strategic evaluation, or contributing to knowledge-building efforts, which helps form international understanding of blockchain’s real-world affect on the continent.
African Web3 startups raised $122.5 million in 2024, a decline in deal worth from the earlier 12 months, regardless of excessive consumer adoption on the continent. Why is there a niche between utilization and investor urge for food?
You will need to distinguish between crypto and blockchain: Crypto is without doubt one of the first purposes of blockchain expertise. Traders should not essentially targeted on crypto itself, however on the broader functionality of blockchain expertise to enhance upon legacy expertise stacks and to create new buildings for possession, worth alternate, governance, and the removing of intermediaries.
The funding case for blockchain has by no means been stronger. What the web has accomplished for the alternate of information is equal to what blockchain is doing for the alternate of worth. No one talks a few “cross-border e-mail” due to the ubiquity with which information flows world wide! Blockchain is creating this ubiquity for the alternate of worth on the web, enabling an financial worth layer which is democratised and globally accessible.
Encouragingly, we see blockchain adoption charges that are harking back to early web adoption, and the blockchain financial system has by no means been stronger. High teachers, visionary founders and over 26,000 blockchain builders are converging throughout the blockchain ecosystem, leading to vital capital invested in blockchain firms and over 500 million international crypto customers.
Has Africa’s funding winter of 2023–2024 modified the standard or variety of African Web3 startups elevating capital?
Investor capital stays cautious, not simply in Africa, but in addition throughout the remainder of the world, which is usually a mirrored image of heightened international uncertainty pushed predominantly by geopolitical elements. Regardless of the gradual begin to the 12 months, the rest of 2024 was really optimistic for Web3 enterprise funding, with blockchain startups taking an outsized share of enterprise funding in Africa.
No matter funding ranges, blockchain builders on the continent haven’t been deterred in any method, with no scarcity in high quality or amount of robust blockchain startups in Africa. Our pipeline is stuffed with extremely compelling funding alternatives throughout a variety of sectors and geographies.
CV VC has stored writing cheques into African Web3 groups whereas others pull again. What explains that dedication?
Our dedication is rooted in a long-term funding philosophy and a perception within the transformative energy of blockchain expertise, particularly in markets the place it could clear up actual, structural issues. We focus solely on utility and ignore hypothesis. We’re not simply investing in traits; we’re backing decided founders who’re constructing infrastructure, bettering entry, and bringing belief to programs that want it most. That’s precisely what we see occurring throughout Africa.
Regardless of international funding fluctuations, innovation hasn’t stopped; founders are nonetheless constructing, and the use circumstances for blockchain in a number of sectors are extra related than ever.
How do accelerator programmes like CV Labs and ecosystem grants match into your Africa technique?
The proprietary CV VC accelerator program is designed to deliver founders collectively, not simply to realize funding however to share experience, cross-pollinate concepts, and construct resilience by means of neighborhood. Finally, it’s about catalysing innovation that may flourish lengthy after the preliminary funding.
In Africa, the place markets are sometimes fragmented and infrastructure continues to be evolving, accelerators play an important function in strengthening native capabilities and increasing entry to international networks. They permit us to establish promising expertise early, present tailor-made help, and assist founders scale options which can be contextually related and infrequently globally aggressive.
In addition to being extremely helpful for founders and the ecosystem at massive, the accelerator is finally a further mechanism used to deploy fairness cheques alongside our conventional direct enterprise technique. Traders profit by means of an prolonged due diligence train and beneficial risk-reward profiles given the early entry level.
Which African sectors greatest match CV VC’s thesis on belief and decentralisation?
Our funding theme revolves round three key areas and applies to startups from any continent: first, purposes constructed instantly on blockchains. Second, we prioritise startups utilizing blockchain to drive broader tech and social megatrends. Third, we additionally strongly think about service suppliers and infrastructure gamers that help the broader blockchain ecosystem.
From a sector standpoint, we see a mature dispersion of exercise throughout a number of sectors. Fintech leads the cost, which is according to the broader African enterprise panorama and funding allocation. Past that, we see distinctive purposes throughout the technology-enabled subset of agriculture, media, local weather, property, mobility, healthcare, training, id, gaming, and HR. Moreover, we see a deal with blockchain infrastructure improvement, together with developer tooling and business-to-business (B2B) purposes.
Given the worldwide risk-off temper, are buyers nonetheless cautious about Web3 in Africa? In that case, why?
There may be nonetheless some warning amongst buyers with regards to Web3 in Africa. This warning may be attributed to buyers allocating capital based mostly on a spectrum of danger, the place blockchain, as an rising expertise and Africa, as an rising market, are perceived as greater danger and due to this fact draw elevated warning. That is influenced by the present risk-off sentiment globally, pushed predominantly by geopolitical elements, and this isn’t, in our view, a critique of the expertise or the market.
Having mentioned this, many buyers are intrigued by the potential of blockchain expertise and its particular purposes for the African continent, and urge for food is rising. Traders are watching carefully as African founders display actual utility utilizing blockchain to unravel core points like monetary inclusion, id, remittances, and land possession provenance.
We imagine that as extra success tales emerge from the continent, confidence will observe. Our function at CV VC is to be early in that cycle to again the builders right this moment who will form the narrative of tomorrow.
Do regulatory developments in key African markets matter? Which international locations are main?
Completely. Regulatory readability is important for financial competitiveness within the Web3 house. Nicely-defined insurance policies appeal to risk-tolerant enterprise capital, as we’ve seen in Africa’s main all-sector VC hubs of Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, and South Africa. In distinction, regulatory ambiguity drives expertise and capital offshore, undermining belief and stalling innovation.
Traders are additionally inspired by the worldwide shifts occurring, notably the US transferring towards a extra pleasant stance in 2025. Many African lawmakers are pushing to exchange fragmented oversight with clearer frameworks.
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