Funding dries up for Lazerpay and the company has decided to close shop

Another crypto company bites the dust, this time it’s a Nigeria-based crypto payment company called Lazerpay. The company will no longer exist due to lack of funding and the difficulty of scaling, says people familiar with the matter.

Lazerpay funding so far.

According to Crunchbase

Funding Rounds

Number of Funding Rounds 1

Total Funding Amount $100K

Lazerpay has raised a total of $100K in funding over 1 round. This was a Seed round raised on Nov 21, 2021.

This is the only public information that is available bout Lazerpay’s previous funding rounds. They might have raised additional money in between that was not made public.

Lazerpay, a web3 and crypto payment company, has announced its shutdown after failing to secure funding. The company's founder, Njoku Emmanuel, took to Twitter to share the news, stating that the startup had tried to "keep the lights on for as long as they could, but they're now at a point where they need to shut down." The shutdown comes after the startup downsized its workforce in November 2022, and despite the efforts to stay afloat, the cuts were not enough.

According to a source close to the matter, the layoffs happened after the founder rejected an unfavourable acquisition offer from an existing investor. The source also revealed that only two developers, the founder and the source, remained working at the startup but with no pay. Customers have been advised to move their funds from the platform using the bank or crypto payout options before April 30, 2023, when the startup will officially cease operations.

Lazerpay's closure is a significant blow to the African crypto industry, which has been struggling amid a funding drought and a more stringent approach to funding. Last year, FTX's demise had a domino effect on the industry, causing Nestcoin, a Nigerian crypto startup, to lay off staff and its CEO to stop taking a salary. Investors have been shying away from crypto startups in recent times, and another Nigerian crypto startup, Fluidcoins, was acquired by Bitfinex last month after it unsuccessfully tried to raise funds to continue its business operations.

Lazerpay, which was founded in 2021, developed an API that allowed developers to integrate crypto payments into their platforms, thus allowing merchants to accept payments in crypto. In its seventeen months of operations, the startup served over 3000 businesses and enabled merchants to receive and make payments in Naira, cedis, Kenyan Shillings, Rwandan Shillings, US Dollars, and UAE Dirham.

Despite the shutdown, Lazerpay is open to continuing its mission of driving financial inclusion and interoperability in Africa by selling its IP to anyone interested in using it to build the future of crypto payments. Lazerpay was previously backed by Shola Akinlade of Paystack, Nuwa Capital, Voltron Capital, and Nestcoin.