Nigerian startup Daya has raised $2.4 million in pre-seed funding to build stablecoin-based payment infrastructure for African businesses, the company announced on June 24, 2026. The round, which was oversubscribed, was led by New York digital asset firm Hivemind Capital, with participation from Lattice Fund, Alliance DAO, Aptos Foundation, and Singapore-based Globelink Investment. Founded in October 2025 by Tomiwa "Aleph" Lasebikan and Paul Joe, Daya gives businesses virtual accounts in U.S. dollars, Hong Kong dollars, and Chinese yuan, settling transactions through dollar-backed stablecoins (digital tokens pegged to fiat currencies) on the Aptos Layer 1 blockchain.

The core problem Daya is targeting is well documented. Traditional cross-border payments in Africa cost businesses between 7.4% and 8.3% per transaction on average, according to Tryduplo's 2025 industry guide, and can take three to five business days to settle. Daya charges 0.1% to 0.3% per transaction and settles on the same day. When a client receives dollars into their Daya-issued U.S. account, held through regulated American banking partners, the funds are converted to stablecoins and credited to the business's wallet. From there, the business can pay international suppliers directly or convert to naira through AML-compliant (anti-money laundering) over-the-counter liquidity providers and withdraw locally. "The world we're born into is one where communication across borders is incredibly fast," said Lasebikan. "But sending money across borders is horrendous."

The company says it is growing 40% month on month in 2026, though Daya launched less than a year ago and has not disclosed absolute transaction volumes. That caveat aside, the growth rate reflects genuine demand in a market where SMEs (small and medium enterprises) represent 90% of businesses across the continent, according to Remittances Hub and Tryduplo, and move roughly $100 billion per year in cross-border payments, according to the same sources, much of it through expensive correspondent banking networks. Nigeria alone accounts for approximately $22 billion in on-chain transaction volume for the period from July 2023 to June 2024, according to the Transak Africa Fintech Stablecoin Report 2026, and holds an estimated 25.9 million crypto users, the second-largest national total globally. Stablecoins represent 43% of all crypto transactions across Africa, according to the Transak Africa Fintech Stablecoin Report 2026, and 79% of African crypto users hold stablecoins, the highest share of any region in the world, according to the BVNK Stablecoin Utility Report 2026.

Just under three weeks before the funding announcement, on June 5, 2026, Daya was named as the African node in a Corridor Pilot Agreement between HashKey MENA (a Dubai exchange licensed by the UAE's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority) and the Aptos Foundation. The agreement connects Daya to HashKey's existing Asia Connect network, which already links Hong Kong, the Philippines, Vietnam, and the UAE. For West African businesses trading with Gulf or East Asian counterparts, this creates a documented, regulated settlement pathway across multiple jurisdictions, all settling natively on Aptos. The first phase covers Nigerian naira on- and off-ramps, with additional African currencies planned.

Lasebikan previously led product at Helicarrier, a Y Combinator-backed fintech, and has also worked at Microsoft. Co-founder Paul Joe spent time as a crypto analyst at research firm Messari and built StableStats, a directory tracking the stablecoin ecosystem. Daya graduated from Alliance DAO's ALL15 accelerator cohort in November 2025 as the only Africa-focused startup among 14 graduates. Fellow cohort members included Copperx (stablecoin banking for Asian businesses) and UnblockPay (a Latin American stablecoin BaaS, or Banking-as-a-Service, platform), suggesting that regional stablecoin B2B rails are a global investment thesis, not just an Africa story.

The competitive field in Africa is already active. Yellow Card, the continent's largest licensed stablecoin on and off-ramp, operates in 20 countries and signed partnerships with Visa in 2025 and Mastercard in May 2026. Juicyway processed $1.3 billion in total payment volume from roughly 4,000 users before publicly emerging in December 2024. Globally, Bridge (acquired by Stripe) and BVNK (acquired by Mastercard in March 2026) provide a rough template for where infrastructure companies in this space can end up. Daya's approach as a B2B neobank, rather than a pure exchange or remittance service, is a distinct product position within that landscape.

Nigeria's April 2025 recognition of digital assets as securities under its Investment and Securities Act has provided legal clarity that was previously absent, and institutional investors appear to have taken note. Nigeria captured 35% of total African tech investment in 2024, according to the Transak Africa Fintech Stablecoin Report 2026, reinforcing the country's standing as the continent's primary destination for venture capital. Aptos Foundation's participation in this round is a strategic infrastructure bet on the chain's role in African settlement, not a regulatory signal. With the global stablecoin market processing $28 trillion in transaction volume in 2025, up 79% from the prior year, and B2B cross-border payments projected to reach $47.8 trillion by 2032, the infrastructure gap Daya is targeting is large. Whether a sub-one-year-old startup can build the compliance depth and liquidity density to match that opportunity at scale is the central question its investors are now betting on.