How to Apply for the Cardano Accelerator Program at EMURGO Africa Adaverse

In September 2021, EMURGO announced the establishment of a $100 million Cardano investment vehicle comprised of two separate entities, EMURGO Africa and EMURGO Ventures, to invest in early startup and growth stage companies focused on developing socially impactful Cardano-powered solutions.

The investment thesis of EMURGO Africa is to support the development of three hundred regional startups through seed funding and incubation, with the ultimate goal of having these startups adopt Cardano’s blockchain to develop socially impactful solutions and position Cardano as the technological platform standard in Africa.

EMURGO Africa formed two major partnerships to rapidly expand the Cardano ecosystem in Africa, leveraging EMURGO’s knowledge of the Cardano ecosystem as one of its founding entities and its partners’ large business networks.

We formed Adaverse – a Cardano-focused joint accelerator program in Africa – with our strategic partner Everest Ventures, a leading blockchain industry accelerator.

WHAT MAKES AFRICA UNIQUE?

Venture capital investments in African startups are expected to total $2.25 billion to $2.8 billion in 2021, indicating a significant opportunity for high-growth startups in the local market.

In terms of the global blockchain market, it is expected to grow more than 120x from $3.67 billion in 2020 to $449.6 billion by 2028.

Africa alone is expected to account for 30% of the market, growing from a $1.1 billion market in 2020 to a $134.9 billion market by 2028.

The adoption of Cardano by Ethiopia’s Ministry of Education to track students’ academic performance demonstrates the rapid growth of blockchain awareness and usage in Africa.

Cardano, a third generation blockchain that is ESG-friendly, with design principles based on scalability, sustainability, and interoperability, also offers fast and low transaction costs, making Cardano a proper product-market fit for the continent.

WHAT EXACTLY IS ADAVERSE?

The Adaverse accelerator, powered by EMURGO Africa and Everest Ventures, provides funding and investment support to African startups developing the next wave of DeFi, NFT, gamefi, metaverse, and other decentralized applications on Cardano’s blockchain.

Adaverse offers a three-month accelerator program that includes 24 hours of 1:1 mentorship and 12 weeks of intensive training for founders from a team of industry veterans and experts with extensive knowledge of Cardano blockchain development, venture capital, entrepreneurship, and financial markets.

The training program covers a broad scope including:

– product design for market fit

– tokenomics

– technical support

– Cardano architecture and design principles

– proper fundraising & listing processes

Adaverse covers early-stage startups ranging from an idea to post-revenue series A ventures.

Startups that are in the pre-seed phase can get an investment of $50,000 while projects that are entering their series A funding phase can access up to $2 million.

HOW CAN I APPLY?

Adaverse is open for applications year-round for the 3 months acceleration program!

The 2022 batch-1 program will begin in January 2022 through March 2022 and interested companies are expected to apply before January.

Any application submitted while a program is running will be scheduled for the next batch.

Adaverse expects and encourages startups to build on Cardano while maintaining flexibility and interoperability.

For further information, please visit www.adaverse.co.

To apply directly, please go to the application link here.