The startup that bought crypto with pre-seed money
Heard the one about the unorthodox founder who did the unusual (and perhaps the unthinkable)?
Heard about the fledgling Nigerian startup that pushed the bulk of a pre-seed raise into the mood swing-prone cryptocurrency market? Wait for it. Last week, the entire cryptocurrency market basically crashed and hundreds of billions of dollars went poof within hours. And it’s all tied to one tweet from the eccentric Technoking of Tesla, Elon Musk. At the time of writing, the market continues to plummet.
Yes, that’s way too much power in the thumbs of one person but it’s just another indication of the high volatility and influenceability of crypto-assets. So how did it turn out for that ballsy startup founder with a big appetite for crypto and risk? Well, it’s quite the story. So, I did some relentless pestering, probing, prodding, and prying (which is like 90% of what I do for a living anyway), and produced what turned out to be a rather bizarre story. In my conversation with the rookie founder, it became clear that there are some regrets, just not the kind most folks would expect. “The only regret is we didn’t invest more. Left to me, I would have invested all the money,” he says. In this article, I peeped under the hood of this non-conformist one-year-old startup and the unconventional path taken by its founder, together with the investors, and their collective maverick-like leanings.
