Paycrest raises $404k pre-seed amid Africa funding strain
Summary
Paycrest raised $404,000 in a pre-seed round to build decentralized stablecoin-to-fiat settlement infrastructure. The round included participation from web3 and traditional VCs such as Hashed Emergent, StarkWare, LAVA, Microtraction, Sunny Side Venture Partners, and a group of angel investors. Founded in 2024 by Chibuotu Amadi and Francis Ocholi, Paycrest targets cross-border payments problems like fragmented liquidity, slow settlement, and high costs, and its model responds to Nigeria's 2021 crypto-to-bank restrictions. The raise arrives amid tight African pre-seed funding (only $46.5M across 281 deals in 2025), and the startup has already gained traction as a Base Batch top-12 finalist and a cash grant recipient at Ethereum's Devconnect.
Funding
Amount
$404.0K
Total raised
Date
January 16, 2026
Announcement date
Investors
Microtraction
Lead investors
Company
paycrest.com
Funded company
Classifications
industries
No industries detected
applications
No applications detected
AskAI Classifications
Labels
No AI classifications detected