Daya, a stablecoin-powered payments and banking platform founded by former Circle and Helicarrier executives, has secured $2.4 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Hivemind Capital. The round also saw participation from Lattice, Alliance, Globelink, and Aptos Foundation.
Founded by Nigerian entrepreneurs Aleph L and Paul Joe, who previously launched Helicarrier, one of Africa’s earliest crypto exchange and stablecoin remittance platforms, the startup is building infrastructure to help African businesses manage increasingly global operations, it said Wednesday.
Many companies continue to patchwork banks, FX providers, payment processors, crypto services, and manual processes to manage cross-border transactions, which often results in high costs, settlement delays, limited visibility, and operational complexity.
Daya said it aims to solve these challenges through a unified platform that combines local fiat rails, stablecoin settlement, smart FX routing, treasury management, compliance workflows, and business reconciliation tools.
“Daya’s stablecoin-native architecture provides African businesses with the financial services they’ve long demanded: access to 24/7 global financial rails, instant settlement, and programmability at a fraction of the costs they incur today,” Kayla Phillips at Hivemind Capital, commented on the news. “Daya is the gateway for African businesses of all sizes to engage in the global dollar economy.”
