11 African stablecoin-focused startups that raised money in H1 2026

Stablecoins are becoming the buzzword in the African fintech startup space.

However, most of the infrastructure layer is not African. It is dominated by global infrastructure companies using African corridors as a growth market. For instance, Kulipa, Sorted Wallet, and Checker are all non-African-founded. The local builders are all tiny, early in the pre-seed and seed stages, and undercapitalized, with $170K–$4M each.

Mature fintech players like Flutterwave, Nala (Rafiki), and Cardtonic are now adopting stablecoins into their existing businesses. Africa’s stablecoin market is the fastest-growing in the world. Nigeria has had its first licensed and compliant Naira stablecoin, cNGN (Consortium Naira). In this article, Condia examines the stablecoin-focused startups that raised money in the first half of 2026.

Cardtonic (Nigeria)

Founded in 2018 by Faturoti Kayode and Balogun Usman as a gift-card trading platform. It completed a $2.1 million seed round in January to build Pil, a business spend tool, after years of bootstrapped growth. In June, it added stablecoin funding to its virtual dollar cards, allowing users to spend digital-dollar balances anywhere Visa is accepted. The platform now serves over 1.8 million active users.

Paycrest (Nigeria)

Founded in 2024 by Chibuotu Amadi and Francis Ocholi. It raised $404,000 in pre-seed in January, backed by Hashed Emergent and StarkWare. It runs a decentralized liquidity network that converts stablecoins to local fiat on-chain, positioning itself as a “SWIFT for stablecoins” without ever holding user funds.

OneDosh (Nigeria)

Founded in February 2025 by Jackson Ukuevo, Godwin Okoye, and Babatunde Osinowo. It closed $3 million in pre-seed funding in January and a $1 million follow-on in June, bringing total funding to $4 million. It builds stablecoin-powered cards and wallets for the US–Nigeria remittance corridor, enabling users to hold stablecoins and spend via Apple Pay/Google Pay anywhere Visa is accepted.

Kulipa (Pan-African)

Founded in 2023 by Axel Cateland, Michael Shynar, and Karl V., the company raised a $6.2 million seed round in April, bringing total funding to $9.2 million. The startup lets fintechs and crypto wallets issue white-label cards that can be funded directly from stablecoin balances, enabling users to spend stablecoins wherever Visa/Mastercard is accepted. Flutterwave is a named partner, which is its main African link.

Nectar Finance / NectarFi (Nigeria)

Founded around 2024 by Felix Daniel and Stephanie Okeke, growing out of a hackathon. It closed a $170,000 pre-seed round in April. The platform is a Solana-based savings and spending app that lets users hold and earn yield on USDC, pitched as a form of inflation protection for naira holders. It has processed over $7 million in transaction volume in under a year.

Sorted Wallet (Pan- African)

Founded in 2022 by Stephen Browne. It closed a $4.4 million seed round in May, led by Tether and Gnosis VC, taking total funding to $5.9 million. It built a 10MB non-custodial USDT wallet for feature phones and low-end Android — the lightest crypto wallet on any app store. It has passed 500,000 downloads across 160 countries, with Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania its fastest-growing markets.

Checker (Pan- African)

Founded in 2025 by Jack Chong, Nathan Crocker, Justin McMahan, and Michael Zaczyk. It closed an $8 million round in May across pre-seed and seed. It is a single API letting banks, remittance firms, and neobanks plug into global stablecoin liquidity and payment rails. It supports 75 currencies and has processed over $3 billion in volume, including coverage across Africa, including Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, and Francophone West Africa.

Nala (Tanzania)

Founded in 2017 by Benjamin Fernandes. It secured a credit facility of up to $50 million in May from Liquidity/Mars Growth Capital (a Liquidity–MUFG joint venture), in addition to $50 million in equity raised to date. It started as a consumer remittance app and rebuilt itself around Rafiki, a B2B stablecoin payments engine now used by MoneyGram and TransferGo.

Flutterwave (Nigeria)

Founded in 2016 by Olugbenga Agboola, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, and Adeleke Adekoya. It closed a Series E at a $3.25 billion valuation in June with a strategic investment from Ripple, taking disclosed total funding past $500 million. It is integrating Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin and the XRP Ledger into its payments network across 34+ African countries, in addition to its earlier partnerships with Polygon and Circle.

Daya (Nigeria)

Founded in October 2025 by Tomiwa “Aleph” Lasebikan and Paul Joe, both Helicarrier/Circle alumni. It closed an oversubscribed $2.4 million pre-seed round in June, led by Hivemind Capital, taking total funding to roughly $2.75 million. It is a B2B stablecoin neobank that provides African businesses with virtual USD/HKD/CNY accounts and instant cross-border settlement. It is piloting a UAE–Africa stablecoin corridor with HashKey MENA.

Stabyl (Nigeria)

Founded by Prince Nnamdi Ekeh, Zachary Schwartzman, and Michael Anyi in June 2026. It emerged from stealth with a $2.7 million pre-seed round led by Konga. It is a liquidity exchange that enables banks and PSPs to match and settle FX orders in either naira or stablecoins (USDT/USDC).