Thousands of remote workers experience delay payments, accounts being flagged, and funds taking weeks to arrive. Hurupay, a Kenyan-founded fintech startup, is building its business around solving that friction.
Launched in 2023 and now incorporated in the United States, the company provides virtual foreign currency accounts backed by stablecoins, allowing African freelancers to receive international payments and convert them into local currency with fewer delays.
Since January 2025, Hurupay says it has processed more than $50 million in transactions and has reached marginal profitability, signalling early traction in a highly competitive market.
“When you create a Hurupay account, we give you a dollar account, a euro account, and a pound account,” Mugambi said. “Freelancers in emerging markets can then receive payments from platforms in the US or Europe as if they were residents of those countries, and once the money lands, they can withdraw it locally.”
What you need to know
Founded by Chief Executive Officer Philip Mburu, Chief Technology Officer Allan Okoth, and Mugambi, the startup initially focused on traditional cross-border remittances. However, by late 2024, the founders concluded that the segment was too saturated to support meaningful differentiation.
Africa’s remittance market is dominated by global giants such as Western Union and MoneyGram, alongside fintech players including Wise and Revolut.
A growing number of African startups, such as LemFi, Chipper Cash, NALA, Klasha, Raenest, Send by Flutterwave and Fincra, are also competing aggressively on cost and speed.
Faced with this crowded landscape, Hurupay pivoted in November 2024 towards a narrower, underserved niche.
Building a global payments layer for remote workers
Hurupay’s core product functions as a global receiving account.
Users who sign up and complete identity verification are issued virtual bank accounts in dollars, euros and pounds. These accounts can be linked to global platforms such as Upwork, Fiverr, Stripe and PayPal, allowing freelancers to receive payments as if they held local accounts in those regions.
Once funds arrive, users can withdraw directly into local bank accounts or mobile money wallets.
Under the hood, Hurupay combines its own wallet infrastructure with licensed banking partners in the United States and Europe, alongside local payout providers across African markets including Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana.
Funds are typically converted into dollar-backed stablecoins such as USDC or USDT, reflected in users’ wallets, and then routed through local payment rails or crypto off-ramps.
According to Okoth, the complexity lies in orchestrating multiple systems that rarely communicate seamlessly.
Profitability, scale and the numbers behind growth
Hurupay generates revenue by charging a 2% fee on incoming payments, alongside a small network fee of roughly $0.50 per transaction.
Mugambi said the company currently operates at around 40% profit margins, earning approximately $0.40 for every $1 spent.
Internal figures indicate that the startup processed more than $10 million in transaction volume in February 2026 alone, with over $500,000 in revenue generated in the past year. Approximately 90% of its transaction volume runs on Base, a layer-2 blockchain network.
The company’s next milestone is significantly more ambitious: scaling monthly transaction volume from roughly $10 million to $100 million over time.
Fraud shock forces compliance overhaul
Hurupay’s growth trajectory was disrupted in March 2025, when suspected fraud forced the company to temporarily suspend parts of its operations.
Transaction volumes dropped by more than 80% as the startup investigated suspicious activity and tightened its onboarding processes.
One common tactic involved mule accounts, where users sold verified accounts to third parties, unknowingly facilitating illicit transactions. Other cases included account takeovers, where attackers gained access to user credentials and redirected withdrawals.
In response, Hurupay rebuilt its compliance infrastructure, integrating global identity verification tools such as Persona, monitoring device and IP behaviour, and strengthening transaction surveillance.
The episode underscored a broader industry challenge: compliance is not only essential, but increasingly expensive.
Competing in a crowded but expanding market
Hurupay operates within Africa’s rapidly growing cross-border payments market, currently valued at an estimated $329 billion and projected to reach $1 trillion by 2035.
A growing share of that volume is driven by freelancers and remote workers rather than traditional remittances.
However, competition is intensifying. Startups such as NALA, Payd, Raenest and Grey are also building products that enable freelancers to receive foreign payments through virtual accounts and stablecoin-backed systems.
Many of these platforms share similar architectures, sitting between global payment platforms and local financial systems.
Mburu argues that Hurupay’s differentiation lies in how it integrates these components into a seamless user experience.
Talking Points
It is significant that Hurupay is focusing on one of the most overlooked pain points in Africa’s digital economy, the difficulty freelancers face in accessing their earnings despite working for global clients.
By providing virtual foreign currency accounts backed by stablecoins, the platform offers a practical workaround to delays, restrictions and inefficiencies associated with traditional payment channels like PayPal and bank transfers.
At Techparley, we see strong potential in this model, particularly as remote work continues to expand across Africa. Enabling faster and more reliable access to income could materially improve financial stability for a growing segment of the workforce.
Hurupay’s pivot away from remittances to a more defined niche is also noteworthy. In a crowded fintech landscape, focusing on freelancers allows the company to address a specific and rapidly growing market with clearer product-market fit.
The use of stablecoins as underlying infrastructure reflects a broader shift in how cross-border payments are being reimagined. By reducing reliance on traditional banking rails, Hurupay is positioning itself within a new wave of fintech built on blockchain-enabled settlement.
As Hurupay scales, partnerships with global platforms, local financial institutions and regulatory bodies could play a key role in accelerating adoption and expanding its reach.
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