NAIROBI, May 21 – Stablecoin payments startup, Checker, has raised $8 million in seed funding to scale its cross-border payment network across Africa, Asia and Latin America, as demand for faster settlement rails and digital currency infrastructure continues to grow in emerging markets.
The round was led by Galaxy Ventures, Al Mada Ventures and Framework Ventures, with participation from DFS Lab, Bitso, Airtm, Onigiri Capital, SNZ Capital and Velocity Capital, alongside investors from Stripe and Tala.
Founded in 2025 by Jack Chong, Nathan Crocker, Justin McMahan and Michael Zaczyk, the startup provides an application programming interface (API) that allows banks, remittance firms and neobanks to connect to global stablecoin liquidity and payment rails through a single integration.
The company said its infrastructure currently supports 75 currencies and covers markets including Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania and Francophone West Africa.
The funding comes as regulators across Africa and other emerging markets formalise rules for virtual assets. Kenya has rolled out its Virtual Asset Service Provider framework, while Ghana has passed legislation establishing a regulatory structure for digital assets.
As regulatory clarity improves, Checker said it is working with financial institutions to build compliant stablecoin-based payment systems that reduce settlement times and lower transaction costs. The company also reported that it has processed $3 billion in total transaction volume over the past year, following onboarding of institutional clients across Brazil, Argentina and Africa.
It added that proceeds from the raise will be used to expand global payment coverage, develop embedded lending and borrowing tools to reduce pre-funding requirements, and roll out AI-driven treasury and analytics solutions for financial institutions.
The startup competes in a growing stablecoin infrastructure market alongside firms such as Conduit, as more players race to build backend rails for global digital payments.
