NectarFi Raises $170,000 Pre-Seed Funding to Solve Crypto Fragmentation Across Emerging Markets

Nigerian digital asset startup NectarFi has secured $170,000 in pre-seed funding as it works to tackle one of the biggest challenges in the crypto space—fragmentation. The funding round marks an early milestone for the company as it prepares to scale its platform across multiple international markets.

The investment comes at a time when early-stage funding for African crypto startups remains cautious, with investors increasingly prioritising platforms that offer real utility and infrastructure rather than speculative trading tools. This shift has created a more competitive but focused environment for emerging fintech innovators.

Founded by CEO Felix Daniel and COO Stephanie Okeke, NectarFi is building what it describes as a unified financial platform that brings several crypto functions together in one place. These include asset storage, trading, payments, cross-border transfers, and access to tokenised investment opportunities.

The startup argues that today’s crypto users are forced to rely on multiple platforms to manage different financial activities, creating inefficiencies and limiting user experience. NectarFi aims to simplify this by consolidating services into a single interface while also addressing another long-standing issue: the lack of verifiable financial histories for crypto users that could help them access credit.

Since its private launch phase, the company says it has already processed over $7.2 million in transaction volume and onboarded more than 1,000 users across Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Brazil, and Indonesia. As it scales, NectarFi joins a growing wave of African fintech startups—including Quidax, Busha, and Yellow Card—working to expand crypto’s real-world use cases, even as regulatory uncertainty continues to shape the industry’s future.

source: nairametrics