Blockchain, not crypto, is driving Africa’s next wave of venture bets, says CV VC’s Jarryd Kennedy

Since joining Crypto Valley VC (CV VC), a Swiss-based venture capital firm that backs blockchain-based startups, as Head of Investment for Africa in November 2024, Jarryd Kennedy has been at the centre of the firm’s push to spot businesses using blockchain technology to solve everyday problems across fintech, payments, and data infrastructure on the continent.

Kennedy’s career before CV VC began in investment banking, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and private equity across London, New York, and South Africa. His experience gives him a dealmaker’s discipline and a technology-first lens, helping him identify use cases where blockchain reduces friction, improves trust and builds real economic infrastructure rather than hype.

In 2022, CV VC launched a $20 million Africa Blockchain Fund, which has invested in 13 early-stage Web3 startups across Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, and Ghana, including Nigerian podcast-hosting platform Jamit, South African crypto investment startup Altify, Kenyan Web3 agritech Shamba Records, and South African neobank Kasi.

The firm’s investment strategy writes direct cheques and backs early-stage startups from its accelerator. Through CV Labs, CV VC selects 7–9 startups to participate in a cohort each year, providing them with mentorship and growth strategy consultations. It backs nearly all the selected startups with $135,000 in funding in return for a 7% convertible note. It also writes $500,000 follow-on cheques for its portfolio startups.

After witnessing African startups’ struggles to access additional capital and infrastructure for growth, the VC firm adjusted its take rate to a 6% equity through debt, increasing its ticket size to $150,000. As of October 2025, the firm claimed more than half of the startups in its portfolio have raised follow-on funding.

Circle Ventures, the investment arm of the US-based issuer of the USDC stablecoin, is among the external backers of CV VC’s Africa Blockchain fund, signalling global interest in the firm’s thesis.

I spoke with Kennedy for this week’s Ask an Investor to understand his career, what it takes to lead CV VC’s African team, and global investor appetite for African blockchain products. 

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

What brought you into Web3 venture capital, and which past roles mattered most?

My entry into the Web3 venture capital ecosystem has been shaped by a decade of experience across investment banking, M&A, and private equity, with roles spanning London, New York, and South Africa. The bulk of my career has been at Deutsche Bank, gaining exposure to Telco, Media and Technology (TMT) across capital markets and M&A.

Over time, I moved into private equity with Convergence Partners, a pan-African private equity firm focused on digital infrastructure. There, I led and supported investments into technology and telecom businesses across markets like Rwanda, South Africa, Kenya, and Malawi. That experience was pivotal because it gave me a deep appreciation for how technology can drive inclusion and development in emerging markets.

Importantly, throughout my career, there has been an enduring focus on technology: I have always viewed it as a tool to revolutionise monolithic, legacy systems, enabling the creation of more efficient outcomes. That is what ultimately drew me to Web3: I saw blockchain as an evolution in the global technology stack that could enable new structures for decentralised ownership, efficient value exchange, transparent governance, and the removal of intermediaries, thereby lowering barriers to entry and creating entirely new economic models.

At CV VC, I lead our venture investments across Africa, applying that same technology-oriented lens to early-stage startups that are building transformative real-world solutions by utilising blockchain technology.

What does being CV VC’s Head of Investment for Africa mean from an operational lens?

At CV VC, no two days are the same. We are a Swiss-headquartered venture capital (VC) firm with a global footprint, and although we operate in a decentralised way, we stay tightly connected through daily team calls, cross-functional projects, and in-person engagements. 

On a typical day, I split my time across three areas: pipeline, portfolio, and investors. On the pipeline, it is all about travel, conferences, and networking, to enable relationship-building with the best startups and founders. Thereafter, we evaluate investment pitches and assess new opportunities through a data-driven lens to benchmark their performance.

On the portfolio side, I work closely with founders across our African investment portfolio, with a mix of relationship-building, hands-on support, and facilitating connections to other ecosystem participants. Finally, on the investor front, we are consistently engaged with investors to report on progress with the goal of leveraging investor expertise to bolster that progress, creating a flywheel of value creation across the ecosystem.

Across all three areas, staying sharp on market trends and emerging utility is important. This encompasses diving into data, strategic analysis, or contributing to knowledge-building efforts, which helps shape global understanding of blockchain’s real-world impact on the continent.

African Web3 startups raised $122.5 million in 2024, a decline in deal value from the previous year, despite high user adoption on the continent. Why is there a gap between usage and investor appetite?

It is important to distinguish between crypto and blockchain: Crypto is one of the first applications of blockchain technology. Investors are not necessarily focused on crypto itself, but on the broader capability of blockchain technology to improve upon legacy technology stacks and to create new structures for ownership, value exchange, governance, and the removal of intermediaries.

The investment case for blockchain has never been stronger. What the internet has done for the exchange of data is equivalent to what blockchain is doing for the exchange of value. Nobody talks about a “cross-border email” because of the ubiquity with which data flows around the world! Blockchain is creating this ubiquity for the exchange of value on the internet, enabling an economic value layer which is democratised and globally accessible.

Encouragingly, we see blockchain adoption rates which are reminiscent of early internet adoption, and the blockchain economy has never been stronger. Top academics, visionary founders and over 26,000 blockchain developers are converging within the blockchain ecosystem, resulting in significant capital invested in blockchain companies and over 500 million global crypto users.

Has Africa’s funding winter of 2023–2024 changed the quality or number of African Web3 startups raising capital?

Investor capital remains cautious, not just in Africa, but also across the rest of the world, which is mostly a reflection of heightened global uncertainty driven predominantly by geopolitical factors. Despite the slow start to the year, the remainder of 2024 was actually positive for Web3 venture funding, with blockchain startups taking an outsized share of venture investment in Africa.

Regardless of funding levels, blockchain builders on the continent have not been deterred in any way, with no shortage in quality or quantity of strong blockchain startups in Africa. Our pipeline is full of highly compelling investment opportunities across a wide range of sectors and geographies.

CV VC has kept writing cheques into African Web3 teams while others pull back. What explains that commitment?

Our commitment is rooted in a long-term investment philosophy and a belief in the transformative power of blockchain technology, especially in markets where it can solve real, structural problems. We focus solely on utility and ignore speculation. We’re not just investing in trends; we’re backing determined founders who are building infrastructure, improving access, and bringing trust to systems that need it most. That’s exactly what we see happening across Africa.

Despite global funding fluctuations, innovation hasn’t stopped; founders are still building, and the use cases for blockchain in multiple sectors are more relevant than ever.

How do accelerator programmes like CV Labs and ecosystem grants fit into your Africa strategy?

The proprietary CV VC accelerator program is designed to bring founders together, not just to gain investment but to share expertise, cross-pollinate ideas, and build resilience through community. Ultimately, it’s about catalysing innovation that can flourish long after the initial investment.

In Africa, where markets are often fragmented and infrastructure is still evolving, accelerators play a crucial role in strengthening local capabilities and expanding access to global networks. They allow us to identify promising talent early, provide tailored support, and help founders scale solutions that are contextually relevant and often globally competitive.

Besides being highly beneficial for founders and the ecosystem at large, the accelerator is ultimately an additional mechanism used to deploy equity cheques alongside our traditional direct venture strategy. Investors benefit through an extended due diligence exercise and favourable risk-reward profiles given the early entry point.

Which African sectors best match CV VC’s thesis on trust and decentralisation?

Our investment theme revolves around three key areas and applies to startups from any continent: first, applications built directly on blockchains. Second, we prioritise startups using blockchain to drive broader tech and social megatrends. Third, we also strongly consider service providers and infrastructure players that support the broader blockchain ecosystem.

From a sector point of view, we see a mature dispersion of activity across multiple sectors. Fintech leads the charge, which is in line with the broader African venture landscape and funding allocation. Beyond that, we see unique applications across the technology-enabled subset of agriculture, media, climate, property, mobility, healthcare, education, identity, gaming, and HR. Additionally, we see a focus on blockchain infrastructure development, including developer tooling and business-to-business (B2B) applications.

Given the global risk-off mood, are investors still cautious about Web3 in Africa? If so, why?

There is still some caution among investors when it comes to Web3 in Africa. This caution can be attributed to investors allocating capital based on a spectrum of risk, where blockchain, as an emerging technology and Africa, as an emerging market, are perceived as higher risk and therefore draw increased caution. This is influenced by the current risk-off sentiment globally, driven predominantly by geopolitical factors, and this is not, in our view, a critique of the technology or the market.

Having said this, many investors are intrigued by the potential of blockchain technology and its specific applications for the African continent, and appetite is growing. Investors are watching closely as African founders demonstrate real utility using blockchain to solve core issues like financial inclusion, identity, remittances, and land ownership provenance. 

We believe that as more success stories emerge from the continent, confidence will follow. Our role at CV VC is to be early in that cycle to back the builders today who will shape the narrative of tomorrow.

Do regulatory developments in key African markets matter? Which countries are leading?

Absolutely. Regulatory clarity is essential for economic competitiveness in the Web3 space. Well-defined policies attract risk-tolerant venture capital, as we’ve seen in Africa’s leading all-sector VC hubs of Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, and South Africa. In contrast, regulatory ambiguity drives talent and capital offshore, undermining trust and stalling innovation.

Investors are also encouraged by the global shifts happening, notably the US moving toward a more friendly stance in 2025. Many African lawmakers are pushing to replace fragmented oversight with clearer frameworks.