Juicyway, a Nigerian stablecoin-powered cross-border payment startup, announced its $3 million pre-seed.
P1 Ventures, an early-stage African investor, led the pre-seed round. Africa-focused investment firms, Ventures Platform, Future Africa, Magic Fund and Microtraction participated. Andrew Alli—former AFC CEO, Gbenga Oyebode of Aluko & Oyebode and Tunde Folawiyo—former Access Bank Board member are Angels.
According to a statement shared with Condia, the startup will invest in its technology, team, and markets with this funding.
Ife Johnson (CEO) and Justin Ziegler (COO) founded Juicyway in 2021.
Despite increased globalisation, African businesses find it difficult to get foreign accounts, access foreign currencies and make international payments. On the flip side, businesses looking to expand to Africa need local accounts for operations and foreign liquidity for repatriation. KYC/AML requirements, regulatory barriers and low trade volumes make this a challenge.
With low-trade volumes come fewer competitors which has made payout cost and FX margins high. For instance, remittance to sub-Saharan Africa is the highest in the world at 8.2%.
Johnson, ex-Bamboo and Ziegler, ex-Andela saw the challenges their previous employers faced in moving money to and from Africa. CEO Johnson tells Condia, “I’ve had way too many struggles as an executive for it to make sense to me that this problem hadn’t been solved…”.
So, Juicyway enables individuals and businesses to send, receive, and process payments globally. The platform offers multicurrency accounts in Nigerian Naira (NGN), US dollars (USD), and Canadian Dollars (CAD). It also offers USDC and USDT stablecoin wallets. Thus, its customers can use one account to receive money, convert it to another currency, and make payments globally.
“Africa contributes less than 1% to the $5 trillion global currency market, partly because there’s no liquidity for intra-African currency pairs. The old systems weren’t built to support this. Our ultimate goal is to unlock liquidity for African currency pairs that currently have none. Stablecoin technology and our network model make this vision achievable by enabling fast and efficient money movement. Without it, we’d still be in pursuit of this goal, but it would be far harder to achieve,” adds Johnson.
To build the product, the startup has secured licenses in Nigeria, Canada, the USA and the UK. Juicyway has a local payment (PSSP) and an international money transfer operator (IMTO) licence in Nigeria. In the UK, it is an Authorised Payment Institution (API). In Canada, it is a Money Service Business (MSB) while in the US, it is a money transmitter (MTL). Its IMTO licence allows it to partner with Access Bank to bring money into the country. Juicyway works with Lead Bank, a US bank that partners with fintechs like Revolut to issue USD accounts. For its crypto service, it has partnered with Bridge, recently acquired by Stripe.
In its three years of operation, Juicyway processed over $1.37 billion across 25,000 transactions. Its corporate customers include Afriex (remittance), Bolt, and Mocoh SA (a global energy and logistics firm).
“The fintech’s revenues come from processing and payment fees, with take rates ranging from 0.2% to 10% on certain transactions,” TechCrunch reports. Assuming an average take rate of 2%, the company would have made about $30 million in revenue, since reception. “Moving forward, it’ll look to generate additional revenue from earning interest on customer balances,” the report says.
Juicyway’s moat, Naira Rates—a rate discovery engine
Obscurity in trade rates and ignorance of counterparty volume are some of the big drivers of the volatile and disparate spreads in the market. To negotiate, market participants are often on the hunt for the best exchange rate.
The company addressed this need by building a tool, Naira Rates which spits out the exchange rates for key currency pairs.
Launched on Twitter (now, X) in 2022, @Naira_rates has grown to become a trusted source of exchange rates with nearly 500,000 followers. Shortly after, the company followed up with crypto exchange rates.
The formerly anonymous handle, Naira Rates has become one of the company’s moats. In recent times, market rate tweets from Naira Rates include a link to Juicyway’s website.
With Naira Rates, Juicyway now controls an important part of the foreign exchange value chain. Both feed into each other.
According to the statement, “By displaying real-time rates based on what other users are willing to pay, Juicyway fosters a liquid ecosystem that reduces remittance costs. This empowers users to trade confidently, promoting financial inclusion and economic growth.”
“Juicyway’s innovative and forward-thinking approach to cross-border payments strategically positions it as a transformative force in Africa’s rapidly evolving financial landscape,” Dotun Olowoporoku, Managing Partner at Ventures Platform says. “By leveraging cutting-edge technology and deep market knowledge, Ife, Justin and the team exemplify our investment thesis of democratizing prosperity in Africa through innovation.”
Hisham Halbouny, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at P1 Ventures who is leading the round said: “We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Ife, Justin and Idris as they tackle one of the most critical challenges in finance. By leveraging innovative stablecoin technology, they’re leapfrogging outdated infrastructure to create a seamless, efficient, and inclusive cross-border payment system that reshapes how Africans connect with the global economy.”
This funding will drive Juicyway’s growth by supporting team expansion, technological advancements, and entry into new markets. The round includes the addition of Joshua Wasserman, a compliance and regulatory expert with experience at the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and a key leader in building compliance for Cash App. Juicyway also welcomes Idris Ibrahim as CRO, Ridwan Otun (formerly with Bamboo and Smart Pension), and Ukeoma Chukundah (ex-Klarna and Deimos) to the engineering team.
