HoneyCoin, a Kenyan fintech startup building stablecoin-powered payment rails, has raised $4.9 million in seed funding to push into new African, Latin American, and Asian markets.
Flourish Ventures led the equity round, which also included participation from TLcom Capital, Stellar Development Foundation, Lava, Musha Ventures, 4DX Ventures, Antler, and Visa Ventures, the investment arm of the global payments giant.
The Nairobi-based startup is betting that its blockchain-powered settlement rails can capture a slice of Africa’s $329 billion cross-border payments market, where settlement delays and high fees are common. HoneyCoin’s stablecoin-powered payment infrastructure connects directly to banks, mobile money networks, and global payment partners, enabling businesses to move funds in hours instead of days at a fraction of traditional costs.
“We have unlimited runway, we’re profitable and have been for the past 2 years,” said David Nandwa, founder and CEO of HoneyCoin. “Our mission is to build the operating system for money; how it’s moved, held, and collected, regardless of medium or geography—just like Apple redefined computing. This raise enables us to lead that transformation, across Africa and other global markets.”
The fintech claims it processes $150 million monthly in transactions, serving 350 enterprise clients and 326,000 direct consumers. Most of its revenue comes from B2B settlement and acquiring services, with corporate clients paying up to $2,500 monthly to integrate its payments API.
Founded in 2020, HoneyCoin operates in 15 African countries, the US, parts of Europe, and several emerging markets. The fresh funding brings its total capital raised to just over $5 million, including earlier backing from Flourish in 2021 and 2022, according to Crunchbase. The company, which says it has been profitable for two years, will use the cash to hire senior executives, secure more licences, and expand into Mozambique, Zambia, Rwanda, Francophone Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
HoneyCoin’s infrastructure settles transactions the same day, according to Nandwa, using stablecoins to cut cross-border settlement times from days to hours.
“We’ve built a proprietary, stablecoin-powered AI Matching Engine that uses the customer and volume data we have to net off flows across both sides,” Nandwa explained. “We have also built a global colocation network of strategic banks that powers our near-instant to same-day settlements.”
The startup claims its B2B volumes are growing 16% month-on-month, while consumer activity via its Peer app is growing 5% monthly. About 60% of Peer transactions are domestic payments, with 40% cross-border.
HoneyCoin holds Money Service Business (MSB) and Payment Service Solutions Provider (PSSP) licences in Canada, a virtual asset service provider (VASP) licence in Europe, and MSB approval in the US. In Africa, it has received Letters of No Objection (LNOs) from regulators in Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania, plus direct partnerships with mobile network operators and payment service providers (PSPs).
It plans to launch several new products in Q3 2025 to expand its technology and service offerings to businesses and consumers, including a stablecoin-backed debit card with Visa; a cross-border liquidity solution for African corporates with Interswitch; a banking-as-a-service (BaaS) product in Ghana, Malawi, and Tanzania; and a software POS solution for East Africa.
“[HoneyCoin] has the chance to cement itself as the go-to infrastructure layer for collecting, converting, and settling funds in any currency across B2B cross-border payments into and within Africa,” said Efayomi Carr, principal at Flourish Ventures. “The capital will strengthen core infrastructure, deepen bank and regulator relationships, and add senior talent to serve larger enterprise clients.”
Nandwa sees HoneyCoin competing with global and African fintechs such as VertoFX, Nala, Yellow Card, and Cellulant, all building cross-border payment solutions for African markets.
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