There’s an opportunity for crypto to serve a larger slice of the market and impact everyday people – DFS Lab
Joseph Benson-Aruna of DFS Lab is optimistic about the future of crypto use cases in Africa.
DFS Lab, in collaboration with Stellar Development Foundation, recently launched the DFS Lab Stellar Africa Fund I to support African entrepreneurs building innovative digital payment solutions on the Stellar blockchain.
In an interview with Mariblock, Joseph Benson-Aruna, a partner at DFS Lab, spoke about the partnership and the thesis of the Investment firm’s main fund. He explained that the DFS Labs has worked with Stellar Network over the past two years in organizing various blockchain bootcamps and programs for entrepreneurs across Africa.
According to Benson-Aruna, the partnership with Stellar Development Foundation is a right fit for DFS as the investment firm believes Stellar’s infrastructure and resources complement DFS lab’s research and consultancy experience in the blockchain space.
He said:
“For us, we see ourselves playing the role of finding these companies early and helping them grow ... just because of how much work we’ve done in the space. Helping them grow around the product, operations, and with the technical backing of stellar foundation with all [their] engineering resources and educational resources. So, bringing that and merging it with our own experience and helping these founders and preparing them to go ahead and raise from bigger funds.”
Benson-Aruna emphasized that DFS Lab and Stellar Foundation are still in the early days of the fund and are still building their investment thesis as they discuss more with startups building promising and successful crypto use cases on the continent. He believes that the companies have ideas of what they want the fund to be in terms of the kinds of solutions it sponsors.
“We think that there’s an opportunity for crypto to serve a much larger slice of the market as opposed to almost like the 1% that it currently reaches now. [We ask ourselves] what kind of crypto solutions are able to impact the lives of everyday people? ... Those kinds of use cases with a wider range of impact. So, most of our thinking is around that.”
