Mento Labs Announces $10M Fundraise and Decentralized Local Currency Stablecoin Roadmap Across 3 Regions
October 16 2024
by Victoria Calmon
- $10M funding will support the development of Mento, the leading decentralized stablecoin platform
- With 4M+ users and 500K+ Daily Active Users (DAUs), Mento is one of the most used stablecoin platforms globally
- Growing ecosystem onboarding users to Web3 through the adoption of digital assets across Africa, Asia and Latin America
Mento Labs, the development team behind Mento, a leading decentralized EVM-platform for launching and operating stable assets on Celo, announced its $10M raise amidst significant growth and milestones, including a stablecoin roadmap introducing new local currency stablecoins across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Mento is one of the industry’s most-used stablecoin platforms in the world, with over 4 million users and 500K+ Daily Active Users (DAUs), driven by a mission to advance the Web3 economy through real-world use cases for local currency stablecoins that promote financial inclusion.
The Mento Platform enables the launch and operation of decentralized local currency stablecoins––with an expanding portfolio of digital currencies including cUSD (Celo Dollar), cEUR (Celo Euro), cREAL (Celo Real), and cKES (Celo Kenya Shilling)––combined with the Mento Asset Exchange, an efficient, virtual AMM trading infrastructure for FX swaps. Decentralized stablecoins on Mento are overcollateralized and backed by the Mento Reserve, a diversified portfolio of crypto assets with a value of more than 150M USD (as of Oct. 14th, 2024). Supporting payments, micro-lending, on-chain FX and more, Mento continues to revolutionize use cases that provide access to affordable and transparent financial services to users in emerging markets around the world.
Mento Labs has raised $10M in funding from leading investors such as T-Capital, HashKey Capital, Richard Parsons, Flori Ventures, No Limit Holdings, Verda Ventures, w3.fund and others. Mento’s stablecoin roadmap includes an expanding portfolio of decentralized local currencies across three regions, with more coming soon:
- cKES (Kenya): Since launching in May, the Celo Kenya Shilling decentralized stablecoin has been integrated by key partners in Kenya including Pretium, Swypt, Valora, Hurupay, Fonbnk, Payd, Kotani Pay, Haraka, Paychant, and Clixpesa. In a community credit pilot program in Kawangware, Kenya, over 1M cKES have been disbursed to 114 micro-entrepreneurs.
- PUSO (Philippines): The first decentralized local currency stablecoin in Asia tracks the value of the Philippine Peso (PHP) and was announced in September. The PUSO aims to boost blockchain adoption and financial access in the Philippines, which has the 8th highest crypto adoption rate globally according to Chainalysis’ 2024 Global Crypto Adoption Index.
- cCOP (Colombia): The Celo Colombian Peso, which aims to launch on Mento in partnership with the Celo Colombia DAO, will target the country’s $70B in monthly crypto transactions and 600+ outlets accepting digital asset payments in Colombia.
- cGHS (Ghana): Together with Celo Africa DAO, Haraka and Grameen Foundation, the Celo Ghanaian Cedi will be launched on Mento in Q4 to support micro-lending and other local currency use cases.
Why Local Currency Stablecoins?
Nearly 2.5bn people remain excluded from traditional financial services, contributing to a global credit gap of $4.9tn. In addition to enabling use cases including micro-lending and micro-funding, local currency stablecoins also facilitate bringing the FX market on-chain (FX trading and settlement, FX forwards, futures and options). As Web3’s home of stablecoins, an increasing number of FX pools on Celo use Mento decentralized stablecoins.
Trust: Local currency stablecoins, which track the local currency 1:1, give users a feeling of familiarity and trust, facilitating user adoption and streamlining onboarding. Transacting in digital currencies that correspond to users’ experiences in their local fiat are more likely to be utilized by micro-entrepreneurs.
Stability: By shielding borrowers from the volatility often associated with FX swings, local currency stablecoins guarantee stability and predictability, especially when it comes to use cases such as loan repayments. For micro-entrepreneurs who depend on reliable financial planning to expand their local businesses, stability is essential.
Transparency and efficiency: Blockchain technology guarantees that every transaction is recorded transparently. Lenders can therefore trace investments to specific borrowers and manage their portfolios in real-time for operational efficiency. Decreasing overhead costs enables lenders to offer loans at lower interest rates to borrowers, facilitating access to financial services in areas where average monthly interest rates from MFIs can range from 30-50%.
“Decentralized local currency stablecoins on the Mento Platform are gaining popularity for payments, remittances, on-chain FX, loans and more,” said Markus Franke, CEO of Mento Labs. “While dollar stablecoins are useful for savings in countries with high inflation or currency volatility, we see strong potential for local currency stablecoins to address emerging use cases like micro-lending and micro-credit.”
Mento’s Reach
Mento’s unique virtual AMM FX trading infrastructure powers Opera MiniPay’s Pockets feature, which allows over 3M users of Web3’s fastest-growing dollar stablecoin wallet to seamlessly drag and swap between cUSD, USDT and USDC, with sub-cent fees and without slippage. The Mento Asset Exchange has also been natively integrated into routers like Squid Router and OpenOcean, allowing for highly efficient on-chain FX trading.
For more information and to stay up to date on the latest developments as the portfolio of decentralized local currency stablecoins on the Mento Platform continues to grow, follow @MentoLabs and join the Mento Community on Discord.
About Mento Labs:
Mento Labs is the development team behind Mento, an EVM platform used to launch and operate new stable assets. Today Mento supports a growing portfolio of decentralized stable assets including cUSD, cEUR, cREAL, eXOF, cKES and PUSO, with more coming soon. Enabling real-world use cases of digital assets, Mento Labs develops customized solutions and offers a suite of tools for partners to launch and operate digital assets around the world.
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