Daya Raises $2.4 Million to Build the Financial Operating System for African Businesses
The Daya funding round highlights growing investor confidence in Africa’s fintech infrastructure sector. Nigerian startup Daya has raised $2.4 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed round to build a stablecoin-powered financial operating platform that helps African businesses collect payments locally, manage treasury operations, and settle globally.
African businesses are more connected to global markets than ever before, yet moving money across borders remains one of the continent’s biggest operational challenges.
Payments can take days to settle, foreign exchange costs eat into margins, and businesses often navigate a patchwork of banks, payment providers, regulations, and currencies just to complete a single international transaction.
Nigerian fintech startup Daya believes there is a better way.
The company has announced a $2.4 million oversubscribed pre-seed funding round to build what it describes as the financial operating layer for African businesses, a stablecoin-powered platform designed to help companies collect payments locally, manage treasury operations, and settle globally with greater speed and transparency.
The round was led by Hivemind Capital, with participation from Lattice, Alliance, Globelink Investment, and the Aptos Foundation. The raise follows an earlier $350,000 investment from Alliance DAO in 2025 and signals growing investor confidence in the future of stablecoin-based financial infrastructure across emerging markets.
The Cross-Border Payments Problem
For many African businesses, international payments remain expensive, slow, and difficult to manage.
Importers, exporters, freelancers, suppliers, and digital businesses often face settlement delays of several days, high transaction fees, unpredictable foreign exchange costs, and limited visibility into payment status.
The challenge becomes even more complex when operating across multiple countries with different regulatory requirements and banking systems.
Despite initiatives such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), financial fragmentation continues to create barriers to regional and global commerce.
For small and medium-sized businesses, these inefficiencies can significantly impact cash flow and growth.
Daya sees this problem as an opportunity.
Rather than focusing solely on payment rails, the company is building software that manages the entire financial workflow surrounding those payments.
As the founding team puts it, the long-term winners in financial infrastructure will not simply move money—they will own the workflows businesses depend on every day.
Building More Than Payment Rails
Founded in October 2025 and headquartered in Lagos, Daya positions itself as a B2B stablecoin neobank and treasury platform.
Its mission is summarized in a simple promise:
Collect locally. Convert smartly. Settle globally.
To achieve that, Daya combines multiple financial tools into a unified platform.
Businesses can receive payments in local currencies, convert funds through optimized foreign exchange routes, manage treasury balances across multiple currencies, and settle internationally using stablecoin infrastructure.
The platform offers:
- Fiat on-ramp and off-ramp services
- Stablecoin-powered global settlements
- Multi-currency virtual accounts
- Treasury management tools
- Smart foreign exchange routing
- Compliance and regulatory infrastructure
- Developer APIs for embedded finance products
The result is a system designed to reduce costs, improve visibility, and accelerate settlement times for businesses operating across borders.
Stablecoins at the Center of the Daya Funding Round
Stablecoins have evolved far beyond their original use case within crypto markets.
Today, many fintech companies see them as a practical financial tool for moving value internationally.
Unlike traditional banking systems that operate within fixed hours and often require multiple intermediaries, stablecoins allow near-instant transfers on blockchain networks with transparent transaction records.
For businesses, the appeal is straightforward:
- Faster settlement
- Lower transaction costs
- Improved transparency
- Reduced operational complexity
- Access to dollar-denominated liquidity
These advantages are particularly valuable in markets where foreign exchange access can be limited or expensive.
Daya is already exploring this opportunity through payment corridors linking Africa and the United Arab Emirates using blockchain infrastructure developed by Aptos and HashKey MENA.
The Daya Funding Round and Investor Confidence
Investors have also placed significant weight on the founding team’s experience.
Daya was founded by Tomiwa “Aleph” Lasebikan and Paul Joe, both of whom bring experience from startups and technology companies operating across global markets.
Lasebikan previously served as Chief Product Officer at Helicarrier, while Paul Joe has worked across organizations including Helicarrier, Messari, Circle, and Microsoft.
Their combination of fintech, crypto, and operational experience has helped position Daya as a serious contender in an increasingly competitive market.
Equally important is their understanding of the local challenges African businesses face every day.
That blend of global expertise and regional insight has become a recurring theme among successful African fintech startups.
What the Daya Funding Round Means for African Fintech
Daya’s funding announcement reflects a broader shift taking place across the African technology ecosystem.
The continent’s first wave of fintech innovation focused largely on digital payments and financial inclusion.
Companies such as Flutterwave, Paystack, Moniepoint, and others demonstrated that African startups could build world-class payment infrastructure.
The next phase appears to be focused on financial operations.
Instead of simply enabling transactions, startups are building comprehensive systems that help businesses manage treasury, liquidity, compliance, cross-border payments, and financial workflows from a single platform.
This shift mirrors trends already visible in global markets, where software companies increasingly embed financial services directly into business operations.
What Comes Next
Daya plans to use the new funding to accelerate product development, expand compliance infrastructure, launch additional payment corridors, and grow its team.
The company is also investing in more advanced treasury and foreign exchange capabilities as it seeks to become a core financial platform for businesses operating across Africa and beyond.
With reported month-on-month growth exceeding 40% during 2026, the startup has already demonstrated early market demand.
The larger opportunity, however, extends far beyond payments.
If Daya succeeds, it could help create a more connected financial ecosystem where African businesses move money across borders as easily as they send an email.
Why the Daya Funding Round Matters for African Trade
Africa’s economic future depends heavily on reducing friction in trade, payments, and financial services.
While infrastructure projects and policy initiatives often receive the spotlight, software platforms increasingly play an equally important role.
Daya’s latest funding round is not just a vote of confidence in one startup. It reflects growing belief that stablecoin-powered financial infrastructure can help solve some of the continent’s most persistent business challenges.
For African companies navigating global commerce, the ability to collect locally, convert efficiently, and settle instantly may soon become more than a competitive advantage, it could become the new standard.
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