magma2: Where Africa's Web3 Future Takes Shape

Founders & builders came from 10 countries for the second magma cohort - collectively, they are running 13 startups that process $2 Billion a year and serve over 360,000 users. They gathered for an intensive two-week residency focused on building Africa's future with Web3 and coordinating their collective efforts.

Why magma exists

With 1.5 billion people underserved by conventional banking and traditional institutions, Africa has naturally gravitated toward crypto solutions. In Africa, Web3 innovations aren't nice-to-have or intellectual exercises - they're serving as the base layer of a new economy that actually works for the fastest growing region in the world.

While the first waves of crypto in Africa largely focused on repurposing trading tools for real-world utility, today's generation of founders is developing tailored solutions for Africa's unique needs. These user-centric tools abstract the complexity of crypto and seamlessly integrate with Web2 payment systems for example, creating a simple revolving door between crypto and fiat.

Our starting thesis is that it's realistically (almost) impossible to build monolithic tools that become the "WeChat of Africa" and meet the wide-ranging needs of a massive, fragmented continent. Instead, we're betting on modular, interoperable legos that make the pieces of a sophisticated suite of services, and can be successful stand-alone startups, while creating exponentially more value through integration. Can we create a stack of products that provide banking, trust, and other needed services, in a well-orchestrated manner, to serve over a billion users?

magma exists to create a coordination point for exceptional builders who are driving this new wave of innovations.

The Heat of Creation

The two-week founder program was intense and purposeful, and it included:

• 102 office Hours for one-on-one mentorship

• 21 Builder-led discussions on topics crowd-sourced during the program

• 15 product demo and candid peer feedback sessions

• 10 technical workshops

• 5 fireside chats with industry leaders

• 5 Homegroups of 6 people each, meeting regularly to reflect, grow, envision, and challenge one another

• 1 story circle for vulnerable sharing and listening

The program's effectiveness is reflected in the numbers: 94% of the 24 founders & builders selected from a pool of 130+, rated the overall experience either 4/5 or 5/5.

Meet the magma2 founders & builders

We identified 24 of the most promising founders and developers who are building the onchain tools Africans are using today, and brought them together for a 12 day residency to coordinate, level up, and better leverage the global Ethereum community.

Startups: Finna Protocol | Blockradar | HoneyCoin | ViFi | Haraka | Grassroots Economics | LaunchNodes | Blockops Network | OneRamp | Chatafisha | Shiga | Fifty Four [54] | Desired Solutions | Sargo | Alphabloq

Individual builders: Lance | Samater | Rikome | Fred | Godspower | Allan

Collective Learning

Builders led deep-dive sessions ranging between technical, business, industry, and personal themes. Below are some of the topics they chose to organize around: 

• Real World Assets (RWA) tokenization and local stablecoins

• Zero-Knowledge proofs for identity verification

• Liquidity provisioning strategies

• Fundraising: stories of success and failure

• Impact staking

• Doing hard things as an African

• Commitment pooling

• Selecting the right network / L2 for African startups

• Forex price feeds

• Pan African licensing

• Branding yourself as a founder 

• Node Validation on Ethereum

• Participating in DAO governance as a collective

• Security incident response through wargames

• Post quantum cryptography and more

Fireside chats with seasoned leaders

The program featured intimate fireside chats with industry leaders including Jason Fried (37Signals), Sreeram Kannan (EigenLayer), Tim Beiko (Ethereum Foundation), and Miriam Kiwan (Circle).

Office Hours with Industry Experts

Hands on workshops and one-on-one office hours with industry experts covered:

• Security fundamentals with Isaac Patka (Shield3 and Security Alliance SEAL team)

• Tokenomics and governance with James Waugh (FireEyes)

• Stablecoins and development tools with Blessing Adesiji (Circle)

• Mechanism design with Andy Tudhope (LAVA)

• Layer 2 scaling with Chris Lema (Scroll) 

• Abstracting complexity Eric Brown (Base) 

• Product development with Eskender Abebe (ENS)

• ZK Email applications with Elo Mukoro (PSE team at the Ethereum Foundation)

• Office hours with The Graph, Privado ID teams, and EigenLayer teams.

Meet the mentors and supporters

Nurturing the Humans

"Emotional Intelligence is important even as a developer or founder," notes Samater, capturing a key theme of the residency. Through story circles, homegroups, and shared vulnerability, builders had opportunities to explore the human side of their journey.

As one founder reflects, “magma forced me to introspectively critique my life and purpose in a way that makes me grateful for the progress I have made so far, as well as motivates me to want to be the best version of myself possible”. 

The founder journey can be lonely, with a lot of pressure, managing personal and external expectations while walking on uncharted territories. Dedicating two weeks to be in one place with 24 founders and builders is a big ask, but that’s what it takes to go under the surface and grow as builders by being around each other.

“I feel magma has made me a more compassionate co-builder overall and has equipped me with a lot of critical skills for continued collaboration” shares a founder.

Another founder also highlights, "in just two weeks, I've gained more perspectives and knowledge than I have in the past several months. I'm incredibly grateful for the community we've built during this time—it's been a truly transformative experience."

During a visit to Grassroots Economics, a project run by a magma2 founder, participants met 30+ villagers using tokenized digital vouchers for value exchange via feature phones. As one founder noted, "the Grassroots trip showed me how communities operate in Kenya at a rural level, as we work with marginalized communities, but in an urban context."

Tangible Outcomes

The residency catalysed 11 direct partnerships among participants, spanning product integrations, infrastructure sharing, and hands-on collaborations.

Almost half of the magma community decided to participate in Devcon 2024 in Bangkok - a testament to their commitment to connecting with the global crypto communities and educating them about African innovations.

With two cohorts complete, magma now comprises of 48 founders and builders leading 26 startups, including many of the fastest-growing tools on the continent. 

At the latest magma alumni day we designed the V0.1 financial services stack using magma startups. Already the community covers:

• On/off ramps

• Business and retail payments (local, cross-border)

• Liquidity aggregation

• Community currencies

• Wallet infrastructures

• Validator nodes

• Credit protocols

• Local stablecoins

• Gaming and social applications

• RWA and DeFi yield products

• Treasury management

• Super apps

• Security & compliance tools

Looking Forward

Will Ruddick captures the program experience in his own words: "magma is where we boil down our organization, technology and vision into a collective vessel for positive change." 

As Africa's Web3 ecosystem continues to evolve, magma continues to attract the most forward-thinking founders and builders. magma3 applications are now open. If you are a founder or builder, building onchain, and for the African market, we invite you to be part of this movement.

We are grateful to our supporters who made magma possible and free for all participants. Thank you for providing hands on support to our builders.

We truly believe Africa will continue to drive large scale crypto adoption, and we are passionate about supporting the builders driving that momentum. We look forward to keep collaborating with global and African players to make crypto as impactful as it promised to be.

Apply to join magma3

magma3 is happening March 31 - April 10, 2025 in Kenya! A new cohort of founders and builders, growing the magma community. We plan to have many of the core components from both magma1 and magma2, with the addition of an online demo day to showcase our builders' work with the global community, a more hands on developer track, and compounding value with all magma founders and builders.

Apply to magma3 by 30 January, 2025!