Daya's pre-seed round, led by Hivemind Capital and Aptos Foundation, targets $400B+ Africa-Asia trade flows with stablecoin settlement, virtual accounts, and APIs.
Alpha Score of 51 reflects moderate overall profile with poor momentum, strong value, strong quality, weak sentiment.
Daya, a stablecoin-native payments startup focused on African businesses, has raised $2.4 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Hivemind Capital, with participation from Lattice, Alliance, and Globelink, and included a strategic investment from the Aptos Foundation.
Daya is building software for companies that need to move money between African and global markets. Its platform combines local payment rails with stablecoin settlement. It also handles FX tooling, compliance, and reconciliation. The company says businesses can access virtual accounts in USD and HKD, with CNY also available, plus stablecoin wallets, payouts, and treasury controls. Daya offers APIs for developers who want to embed cross-border payment functionality into their own products.
The startup was co-founded by Tomiwa "Aleph" Lasebikan, a co-founder of the Y Combinator-backed crypto company Helicarrier (formerly BuyCoins), and Paul Joe. The team has held roles at Circle, Microsoft, and Lyrik Ventures. "The winners in this market will not just own the payment rails; they will own the workflows," Joe said. "We want cross-border payments to feel like modern software: programmable, transparent, compliant, and fast."
Investors framed the raise around the scale of Africa's trade with Asia. Globelink's Kent Cai cited Afreximbank data showing Africa exported $189.5 billion in goods to Asia in 2024, while Asia accounted for 28.5% of the continent's $769 billion in imports – implying more than $400 billion in annual two-way trade-linked flows. The round also follows a pilot corridor partnership between Daya, Aptos Foundation, and HashKey MENA announced earlier this month.
African businesses face expensive transfers, fragmented liquidity, and currency volatility. Stablecoin usage is growing as an alternative. Daya's platform targets that gap, focusing on corporate workflows rather than retail remittances. The funding will support product development, licensing, compliance infrastructure, new payment corridors, and financial institution partnerships.
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