Daya, a B2B stablecoin payments platform founded in October 2025, has raised $350,000 in seed funding from Alliance DAO, a New York-based crypto and AI accelerator whose portfolio includes unicorns Magic Eden and Paper. The $350,000 figure sits below Alliance DAO's standard $500,000 allocation, consistent with an early-stage, pre-product entry to the cohort. The startup was co-founded by Tomiwa "Aleph" Lasebikan, formerly Head of Product at Helicarrier and previously at Microsoft, and Paul Joe, also a Helicarrier alumnus and former Messari analyst who previously built StableStats, a stablecoin ecosystem directory that reflects his early conviction in the asset class. Daya offers Nigerian businesses dollar-denominated accounts, stablecoin settlement, and cross-border transfer services built on the Aptos blockchain. On June 4, Daya announced a corridor pilot agreement with the Aptos Foundation and HashKey MENA FZE, a Dubai-based entity licensed by the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), to connect African and Middle Eastern business payments through a single regulated settlement layer.

The problem Daya is targeting is well-documented. Cross-border B2B payments into and out of Africa cost an average of 8.78% of transaction value as of early 2025, compared to a global average of 6.49%, and typically take three to five business days to settle. Stablecoin-based transfers, by contrast, average between 0.5% and 1% of value sent, with near-instant finality. For import and export businesses operating on thin margins, that gap is material. Joe framed the category opportunity plainly: "Africa is already a front-runner in stablecoin adoption. What's been missing is the regulated infrastructure and scalable liquidity."

Daya charges between 0.1% and 0.3% per transaction and aggregates AML-compliant over-the-counter (OTC) traders to handle local currency conversion rather than taking on foreign exchange risk directly. Regulated bank partners manage fiat entry and exit. Nigerian businesses onboarding to the platform must pass KYB (know-your-business) checks that include validation against the Corporate Affairs Commission registry. The corridor with HashKey MENA adds a regulated Gulf-side ramp: Nigerian businesses convert naira to stablecoins, transactions settle on-chain via Aptos, and counterparties in the Middle East receive local currency through HashKey's licensed infrastructure. The partnership plugs Daya into HashKey's broader Asia Connect network, which spans Hong Kong, the Philippines, Vietnam, and the UAE, with Africa representing the network's newest corridor.

The stablecoin adoption data backing Daya's thesis is substantial. Sub-Saharan Africa moved over $200 billion in on-chain value between July 2024 and June 2025, with stablecoins accounting for 43% of all regional crypto transactions, according to Transak's 2026 Africa Fintech Report. Nigeria alone accounts for 40% of regional stablecoin inflows and processed roughly $59 billion in crypto transactions in the twelve months through June 2024. Africa leads the world in stablecoin ownership among crypto-active users, with 79% holding stablecoins compared to around 45% in high-income markets, according to BVNK's 2026 Stablecoin Utility Report. Globally, stablecoin networks processed $33 trillion in on-chain transfer value in 2025. The structural driver in Nigeria is the naira's persistent depreciation, which has pushed businesses to treat dollar-denominated stablecoin accounts as a treasury tool, not just a payment convenience.

Daya's choice of Aptos as its settlement chain is worth noting. The network currently processes approximately 7.9 million stablecoin transactions per month, a fraction of the volume on Base, BNB Chain, or Solana, each of which handles over 100 million monthly. That throughput ceiling is not an immediate constraint for a startup at this stage, but it is a meaningful infrastructure variable as Daya scales. The platform also faces serious competition from more established players. Yellow Card pivoted fully to B2B stablecoin infrastructure in January 2026. Juicyway emerged from stealth after quietly processing over $1 billion in cross-border transactions. NALA's B2B payments API (Rafiki) grew 30x in twelve months and now partners with MoneyGram. Fasset, with an overlapping model, raised $51 million in May 2026 to expand stablecoin neobanking across emerging markets.

The regulatory environment in Nigeria is moving, though not yet settled. The country's Central Bank (CBN) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) formed a joint 15-member working group in October 2025 to study stablecoin integration into the broader economy. Their final report was expected in early 2026; as of publication, its status and conclusions have not been confirmed, and the regulatory picture presented here should be treated as subject to revision once that report is verified. The Investments and Securities Act of 2025 formally classified cryptocurrency as a securities class under SEC oversight, ending years of legal ambiguity. Financial institutions still must operate through the CBN's Regulatory Sandbox to facilitate crypto-adjacent transactions, a constraint that could slow Daya's expansion if national stablecoin payment rules are not formalized before the company reaches meaningful scale.

For African businesses trading with Gulf counterparties, a regulated, low-cost settlement corridor represents a genuine operational upgrade if the infrastructure proves reliable. Whether Daya, at what appears to be a pre-revenue stage with $350,000 in the bank, can execute before better-capitalized competitors consolidate the market is the central question its team will need to answer. By this publication's assessment, the window for doing so is roughly twelve to eighteen months.