African fintech startup Juicyway has officially launched out of stealth mode, announcing that it has processed over $1.3 billion in total payment volume (TPV) for thousands of African businesses over the last three years. The fintech claims to have facilitated over 25,000 transactions, with 4,000 users relying on its stablecoin-powered platform for cross-border payments.

Despite operating in stealth for three years, Juicyway has managed to acquire prominent customers such as corporates Bolt, IHS, fintechs like Piggyvest, Bamboo, and Afriex, and energy and logistics company Mocoh SA. The fintech's founders, Justin Ziegler and Ife Johnson, attribute their growth to word-of-mouth referrals and the acquisition of a similar business with thousands of customers, including Andela, where one of its founders previously worked as an executive.

Juicyway's platform is designed to provide fast, flexible, and cost-effective cross-border payment solutions for African businesses. The fintech uses stablecoin technology to facilitate transactions, allowing users to inject liquidity and decide on exchange rates. This approach has proven to be more efficient than traditional international and cross-border payment platforms, which often rely on direct fiat currency transfers.

The founders of Juicyway, who previously worked as executives at Andela and Bamboo, respectively, saw firsthand the challenges of moving money across borders despite the numerous cross-border solutions available. They created Juicyway to address this issue, aiming to increase African participation in the global economy.

The platform has announced a $3 million pre-seed round, which will be used to further develop its services and expand its reach. Juicyway provides customers with access to liquidity pools for local and international payments and foreign exchange through its web and mobile apps, as well as APIs covering currencies like Nigeria's naira, USD, GBP, and CAD.

Juicyway's stablecoin platform displays real-time rates based on market-driven pricing, fostering a "liquid ecosystem" where competition and transparent pricing lower remittance costs. The startup also runs Naira Rates, the country's largest price discovery engine for the naira, with nearly 500,000 Twitter followers relying on it to track foreign exchange rates.

In addition to its core services, Juicyway offers multicurrency-insured accounts for transactions facilitated by partners like Access Bank in Nigeria for remittance services, stablecoin infra startup Bridge, and Lead Bank, a major fintech partner bank in the U.S. The fintech has also hired Joshua Wasserman, a former FDIC bank examiner and Cash App compliance leader, to strengthen compliance and manage risk.

Juicyway's revenues come from processing and payment fees, with take rates ranging from 0.2% to 10% on certain transactions. The fintech plans to generate additional revenue from earning interest on customer balances. As the platform expands, it will need to navigate complex financial operations and regulatory ambiguity surrounding crypto and stablecoin issuance and usage globally.

The launch of Juicyway comes at a time when the cross-border payment ecosystem is rapidly evolving, with startups like Yellow Card, Conduit, and Waza also applying stablecoin technology to facilitate payments across Africa and other emerging markets. While Juicyway views these startups as partners in the ecosystem, it differentiates itself by focusing on meeting customer needs at both the supply and demand ends, with a single North Star of increasing African access to the global economy.

Early-stage African investor P1 Ventures led the pre-seed round, with participation from Ventures Platform, Future Africa, Magic Fund, Microtraction, and other angel investors. As Juicyway continues to grow and expand its services, it will be interesting to see how it navigates the complex regulatory landscape and competes with other players in the cross-border payment space.