CrissCross, the South Africa-headquartered cross-border funds infrastructure firm, has secured an undisclosed investment from Circle Ventures, the company enterprise arm of Circle Internet Group, the corporate that points USD Coin (USDC), a digital stablecoin.
The investment, made by means of Stitch Group, CrissCross’s dad or mum firm, will assist the corporate increase its native fee connections and liquidity, construct extra stablecoin settlement capabilities for enterprise clients, and develop the crew supporting shoppers throughout the continent.
Stablecoins are more and more getting used to maneuver cash throughout borders, making them a rising a part of Africa’s funds infrastructure. Circle’s investment marks its second notable guess on the sector in 2026. In July, it invested in Nigerian fintech Flutterwave as the corporate expanded USDC settlement throughout its funds platform, permitting companies to gather funds regionally and settle in USDC. s.
“Africa’s cross-border payments market is massive, complex, and underserved,” James Cope, basic supervisor at CrissCross, mentioned in a press release. “Circle Ventures’ investment validates what we’ve been building: infrastructure that can handle that complexity at scale.”
Lex Campbell and Byron Coetsee based CrissCross to make cross-border funds extra environment friendly for enterprise companies working in African markets. The firm was acquired early by Stitch and now sits inside Stitch Group, the South Africa-based funds group. CrissCross offers companies with a single software programming interface (API) to gather cash, make payouts, handle funds and alternate currencies throughout African markets.
For collections, CrissCross lets clients pay retailers utilizing acquainted native strategies equivalent to financial institution transfers, cell cash and playing cards. For payouts, companies can ship particular person or bulk funds on to native financial institution accounts and cell wallets. Its treasury instruments let corporations handle funds throughout a number of currencies, whereas its overseas alternate infrastructure lets them convert between native currencies, US {dollars}, and euros.
CrissCross connects blockchain-based settlement to native fiat fee networks. A enterprise can transfer worth between markets utilizing stablecoins, whereas the recipient can obtain native foreign money in a checking account. The firm says it chooses between stablecoin and fiat rails based mostly on a consumer’s necessities. It makes cash from the funds and foreign money conversions it processes for shoppers, and says its pricing varies relying on the markets, fee strategies, and providers every buyer makes use of.
“Stablecoins help funds move between markets quickly and transparently, and the money is delivered in local currency to the recipient’s bank account or mobile wallet,” the corporate mentioned in a press release shared with TechCabal. “We use stablecoin or fiat rails depending on what each client needs for speed, cost and compliance.”
CrissCross is attempting to shut the hole between international stablecoin liquidity and native fee infrastructure. In October, CrissCross partnered with Velocity, a stablecoin funds and treasury platform, to attach institutional on-chain liquidity with native collections, payouts and FX. The partnership aimed to attach international stablecoin liquidity to native financial institution accounts and fee rails.
Sub-Saharan Africa received more than $205 billion in on-chain crypto worth between July 2024 and June 2025, up 52% from the earlier yr. As crypto exercise grows, so does demand for infrastructure that connects digital property to native fee methods and permits cross-border funds.
“We’re excited to support CrissCross as they bring stablecoin-powered payments infrastructure to scale across African markets — some of the most complex and underserved corridors in the world,” mentioned Brian Schultz, vice chairman of company growth and ventures at Circle.
CrissCross says it at present operates throughout greater than 30 markets spanning West, Central, East, Southern and North Africa, together with each CFA franc zones, and helps greater than 20 currencies. Its clients embody multinational enterprises, monetary establishments and platforms that want to maneuver cash throughout advanced African fee corridors. The firm desires to turn out to be the infrastructure that lets international companies deal with Africa as one linked market somewhat than a set of separate fee methods.
“We want global businesses to find it as easy to collect and pay out across African markets as anywhere else they operate,” it mentioned. “A company operating in Nigeria, Senegal or Kenya should be able to do it through the same infrastructure, with predictable settlement and full visibility over its funds. More enterprises are building their growth plans around African markets, and we want CrissCross to be the payments infrastructure they use to do it.”
Stablecoins have gotten the layer beneath funds for African funds corporations. In June, Flutterwave announced an investment from Ripple as a part of its Series E and mentioned it could combine RLUSD, Ripple Payments, and the XRP Ledger into its fee infrastructure. It has additionally partnered with Polygon and Tempo to construct out stablecoin settlement infrastructure.
Onafriq, which operates throughout greater than 40 African international locations, has taken an identical route. In February, it partnered with Conduit to make use of stablecoins equivalent to USDC to fund accounts and rebalance treasury holdings, and introduced another partnership in July with digital-asset infrastructure supplier Privy to develop regulated stablecoin-powered fee providers for monetary establishments.
Yellow Card has shifted its focus in direction of companies, offering stablecoin fee infrastructure, fiat settlement rails, custody, and native stablecoin issuance. Once related to crypto buying and selling, dollar-backed stablecoins at the moment are being positioned as a approach for companies to settle transactions and transfer cash throughout borders.
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