Tomiwa Lasebikan

Tomiwa "Aleph" Lasebikan is the co-founder and CEO of Daya, the Lagos-based stablecoin payments infrastructure company he launched in October 2025 alongside Paul Joe. A Fisk University computer science alumnus who spent five years as a software development engineer at Microsoft — working on Azure and HoloLens — Lasebikan pivoted into African crypto in 2018 when he co-founded Buycoins, which later became Helicarrier, one of Africa's earliest Y Combinator-backed crypto exchanges. At Helicarrier he served as Chief Product Officer and led the development of what Daya describes as Nigeria's first local-currency stablecoin. He also served as Principal Product Manager at Circle, the USDC issuer, deepening his command of regulated stablecoin infrastructure. Daya raised a $2.4 million pre-seed round in June 2026 — oversubscribed and led by Hivemind Capital, with participation from Lattice Fund, Alliance DAO, Aptos Foundation, and Globelink Investment.

Daya's proposition is pointed: African businesses, particularly in Nigeria, have been serially underserved by dollar payment rails that are slow, expensive, and intermediary-heavy. Daya provides virtual USD bank accounts, stablecoin settlement infrastructure, and cross-border payment cards, letting businesses settle transactions at a fraction of traditional FX costs. Lasebikan's decade-long arc — from Microsoft engineer to crypto pioneer to stablecoin payment builder — positions him as one of the most technically credentialled founders working on Africa's cross-border payment problem.