African game publisher Carry1st raised $20M in Series A funding led by Google and a16z

According to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Africa will be home to 300 million new internet users in the next five years.

African game publisher Carry1st raised $20M in Series A funding led by Google and a16z

Web3 and Social games publisher Carryist has raised $90 million in Series to further expand product development in Africa - a mainland that could become the premier hub for the gaming business over the next decade. 

The investment round was driven by Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, which has been highly active in the Blockchain space. with extra participation from Avenir and Google parent company Alphabet. Carryist's existing backers, including Riot Games, Konvoy Ventures, Raine Ventures, and TTV Capital also participated in the investment round.

The money injection will be used by Carry1st to expand its content portfolio, grow its in-house development team and spearhead a new growth strategy to develop infrastructure to support play to earn gaming, which allows users to monetize their gaming experience. 

Alphabet's investment in Carry1st is part of its Africa digital transformation initiative, which was reported in October 2021 by CEO Sundar Pichai. At the time, Pichai was recognized as a major growth driver for the digital economy with an expected 300 million people coming online over the next five years. if existing trends are any indication, many of those new users will be gamers. 

As the main publisher of Social games in Africa, Carry1st appears to be in a unique position to capitalize on this potential. also to provide a full-stack publishing platform, the company creates games with embedded payments solutions and online marketplaces to support monetization. The company has released deals with several developer studios, including Tilting point, the publisher of Nickelodeon's SpongeBob: Krusty cook-off, and Sweden's Raketspel. 

Africa is quickly asserting itself as one of the biggest consumer markets for peer-to-peer payments and decentralized networks, Several major economies in the region, including Nigeria, have accepted Bitcoin (BTC) for payments and remittances. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimates that the continents' crypto market grew 1,200% between 2020 and 2o21. The gaming industry is expected to grow exponentially over the next 10 years, developing new opportunities for Web3 and play to earn business models. 

According to research from Newzoo and Caryist, the number of gamers in Sub-Saharan Africa is set to increase by 275% over the next decade. As indicated by research from Newzoo and Cary1st, the number of gamers in Sub-Saharan Africa is set to become 275% over the following ten years

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