Nigeria’s Bitcoin-Focussed Entity, Fedi, Raises $17 Million in Series A Round to Build Out Bitcoin Chat App for Communities

Fedi, a financial and data technology company founded by Nigerian Bitcoin advocate, Obi Nwosu, has secured $17 million in a Series A funding round and is preparing to launch an alpha version of Fedi for builders later in May 2023.

“We are excited that with so much interest in this round, we were able to select investors who are fully aligned on the future we are trying to create with Fedi, the world’s first federated operating system,” CEO Obi Nwosu said in a bog post.

Fedi, which is interoperable with the Bitcoin Lightning Network, thanks to the Fedimint Protocol, is described as a technology company that builds global bitcoin adoption technology. The Fedi mobile app is the company’s main product and it is designed to help billions of people use bitcoin securely, privately, and scalably.

The company, which Nwosu co-founded with Eric Sirion and Justin Moon, aims to be the world’s first federated operating system empowering individuals to collaborate through ‘federations made up of friends, families, neighbors, non-profit organisations, social clubs, businesses, conferences and other forms of community to take control of their money, their data, and their digital lives while still protecting user privacy and autonomy.’

Using the app, a user can create a federation, invite members, who can then chat and transact Bitcoin privately all in one place. Community leaders can customise the experience with sites & services relevant to community members.

“Our complete wallet offers all the features you need, including secure offline transfers without middlemen inside your federation and stable balances.”

However, Fedi says it is different from other Bitcoin wallets in two key ways:

• Federated Custody – Instead of entrusting your funds to an unknown third party, you can store your funds with community leaders you know and trust
• Privacy – Through the use of eCash technology, Fedi provides an added layer of privacy

Fedi is built on the Fedimint protocol, an open-source protocol for custodying and transacting bitcoin in a community context, which makes it easy for developers to build additional apps and modules to complement Fedi’s offerings and give more options to users.

“The Bitcoin community already knows the tremendous potential of the protocol,” Nwosu said. “But what’s most exciting about Fedi is that you don’t have to be an existing Bitcoiner, or even particularly tech-savvy, to quickly start using this to solve real problems within your community,” said Nwosu who is one of 4 Africans serving as a board member of the Btrust Bitcoin Development Fund by Jay Z and Jack Dorsey.

The financing round, which brings the total amount raised by Fedi to $21.21 million, was led by Ego Death Capital, with participation from;

• TBD, part of Block
• Kingsway
• Trammell Venture Partners
• TimeChain

The Series A brings the total amount raised by Fedi to $21.21 million

“Bitcoin offered a truly decentralized currency. Lightning offered truly decentralized payments for bitcoin. And Fedi is offering a truly decentralized and federated way not only to custody bitcoin, but to take back control of everything that matters in your digital life,” said Jeff Booth, Co-Founder of Ego Death Capital and lead investor for the series.

Earlier seed round investors included Ten 31, Hivemind, Steve Lee, and Recursive Capital.

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