Jack Dorsey's Block Co-Leads $2M Investment In Africa-Based Renewable Bitcoin Miner

Gridless said that it has secured a $2 million seed investment round, led by Stillmark, a Bitcoin BTC/USD-focused venture capital firm and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s Block Inc SQ. 

What Happened: Gridless said in a statement that the “investment will support the company’s further expansion of bitcoin mines across African markets.”

Gridless was created in 2022 in East Africa. The company said it uses Bitcoin as a tool to “accelerate growth in the sector and to further geographically distribute and secure the bitcoin network.”

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The company builds, designs, and operates Bitcoin mining sites alongside small-scale renewable energy producers in rural Africa. 

“This work can support positive community externalities while also helping to secure the distributed infrastructure behind bitcoin’s monetary ecosystem,” said Thomas Templeton, Block’s lead for Bitcoin mining on the Gridless investment.

The $2 million seed investment was in addition to an angel round led by Factor[e]. 

Our friends @GridlessCompute doing some incredibly cool work monetizing micro-hydro plants in Kenya.

They build these small hydro plants @ ~100KW which is much much more than the village needs.#Bitcoin #mining #Kenya #Africa #energy
1/3 pic.twitter.com/HdcShx6tkY

— NickH ⛏️ (@hash_bender) October 4, 2022

Why It Matters: Gridless noted that in 2020, more than 50% of people across Africa were without electricity and that there is an “immense demand for reliable, clean, and affordable energy, yet mini-grid energy generators struggle for sustainability.”

Dorsey has called Bitcoin “the open standard for global money transmission” and said that the apex cryptocurrency will allow Block’s “entire business to move faster globally.”

Block lets customers purchase Bitcoin through its CashApp and has taken it upon itself to grow across multiple dimensions beyond just payments. 

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