Key Takeaways:
A team of former Circle and Helicarrier executives is betting stablecoins can solve Africa's cross-border payment problem.
Daya, a stablecoin-powered payments startup founded by alumni of Circle and the Y Combinator-backed crypto exchange Helicarrier, has raised $2.4 million in pre-seed funding to build cross-border banking infrastructure for African businesses. The round was led by Hivemind Capital, with participation from Lattice, Alliance, Globelink and the Aptos Foundation.
"Daya's stablecoin-native architecture provides African businesses with the financial services they've long demanded: access to 24/7 global financial rails, instant settlement, and programmability at a fraction of the costs they incur today," Kayla Phillips at Hivemind Capital said.
The startup, founded in 2025 by Nigerian entrepreneurs Aleph Lasebikan and Paul Joe, offers a unified platform that combines local fiat rails, stablecoin settlement, smart FX routing, treasury management and compliance workflows. Businesses can access virtual accounts in US dollars, Hong Kong dollars and Chinese yuan, hold value in stablecoins, and manage cross-border payments through a single interface. Daya also provides APIs for developers to embed programmable payment infrastructure into their own products.
The bet comes as Africa's cross-border payment market faces growing demand from regional trade integration under the African Continental Free Trade Area and rising stablecoin adoption. Afreximbank data cited by investor Globelink shows Africa exported $189.5 billion in goods to Asia in 2024, while Asia accounted for 28.5% of the continent's $769 billion in imports — implying more than $400 billion in annual two-way trade-linked flows that Daya aims to capture.
The company's approach targets a persistent pain point for African businesses that often patch together banks, foreign exchange providers, payment processors and crypto services to manage international transactions. That fragmentation results in high costs, settlement delays and limited visibility, the founders said.
"The winners in this market will not just own the payment rails; they will own the workflows," Joe said. "That is why Daya is building both the application layer that companies use every day and the API layer that platform developers can build on top of."
Daya's platform sits at the intersection of stablecoin infrastructure and enterprise software, a segment drawing growing investor interest as institutional comfort with digital dollars increases. The startup plans to use the new capital to accelerate product development, expand payment corridors, strengthen compliance and licensing capabilities, and deepen partnerships with local and global financial institutions.
The round follows a pilot corridor partnership between Daya, the Aptos Foundation and HashKey MENA announced earlier this month. Ash Pampati, senior vice president of the Aptos Foundation, said stablecoin-native infrastructure can provide businesses with low-cost access to global liquidity, real-time settlement and programmable financial services.
Stablecoin adoption is accelerating across Nigeria, Kenya and other African markets where volatile local currencies, slow correspondent banking rails and remittance fees exceeding 5% continue to frustrate businesses. Daya's long-term vision is to become the financial operating system that enables African companies to manage payments, treasury, foreign exchange and settlement through a single integrated platform.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
