TechFlow News — Kotani Pay, a cryptocurrency payments startup, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by P1 Ventures, with participation from DCG, Luno, and Flori Ventures. The company aims to make cross-border remittances more accessible for Africa’s vast unbanked population. It plans to expand further into Rwanda, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Tanzania, and Nigeria.
Kotani Pay leverages stablecoins—cryptocurrencies pegged to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar—to conduct international money transfers at a fraction of traditional costs.
To enable people to truly cash out stablecoins held in mobile wallets and pay in local currency, Kotani has built middleware that connects blockchain networks to local payment systems. Many of these local networks allow users to send money on feature phones using Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), a protocol that operates via basic communication functions without requiring internet access.
The startup plans to launch additional products following its acquisition of Nigerian startup Fuhlstack, including Reconset, a reconciliation-as-a-service solution, and Money Ledger, a ledger-as-a-service offering.
Fuhlstack founder Lemuel Okoli will join Macharia and Samuel Kariuki as a co-founder of Kotani Pay.
