Stablecoin payments infrastructure startup, Checker has raised $8 million in seed funding to expand its operations across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, as demand grows for faster and lower-cost cross-border payment systems.

The equity round was led by Galaxy Ventures, Al Mada Ventures, the venture arm linked to Morocco’s royal family investment group and Framework Ventures, with participation from a wide network of financial institutions and fintech investors spanning emerging markets.

Among the backers are DFS Lab, Bitso, Airtm, Onigiri Capital, SNZ Capital, and Velocity Capital, alongside notable operators from the African tech ecosystem, including Iyin Aboyeji, co-founder of Flutterwave; Gwera Kiwana, former Vice President of Partnerships and Blockchain Payments at Onafriq; and Justin Ziegler, co-founder of Juicyway. The round also attracted unnamed investors from Stripe and Tala.

Founded in 2025 by Jack Chong, Nathan Crocker, Justin McMahan, and Michael Zaczyk, Checker provides infrastructure that allows banks, neobanks, remittance firms, and payment providers to connect to global stablecoin liquidity and payment rails via a single Application Programming Interface (API).

Betting on stablecoins as regulation matures

The funding comes at a time when African regulators are increasingly formalising frameworks for virtual assets and stablecoins, signalling a shift from informal experimentation to regulated adoption.

Rather than integrating with multiple fragmented providers across regions, financial institutions can plug into Checker’s orchestration layer to access cross-border payment networks, foreign exchange systems, and settlement rails through one integration.

“This funding allows us to accelerate our mission to enable financial institutions from Brazil and Kenya, to Hong Kong and the United States, to transform how foreign exchange, payments, trading, and investment products are built. We are incredibly grateful for our customers and investors’ trust,” said Jack Chong.

The company says its infrastructure already supports 75 currencies, with active coverage across African markets including Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, and Francophone West Africa.

“We’re building the network-of-networks infrastructure for the stablecoin era,” said Isaac Umejiaku, Head of Africa sales at Checker. “With one integration, we connect African financial institutions to multiple payment providers, cross-border payment businesses, and banks globally, dramatically reducing settlement times and fees”.

Expansion plans and new financial products

Checker said the fresh capital will be used to deepen its global payments coverage, expand into new markets, and strengthen institutional connectivity across regulated financial systems.

The company is also developing embedded financial products, including borrowing and lending tools designed to reduce pre-funding requirements for customers, a persistent friction point in cross-border settlements.

In addition, Checker plans to introduce AI-driven tools for treasury management, back-office automation, and predictive analytics for financial institutions.

According to the company, these tools are designed to improve liquidity management and operational efficiency for institutions handling high volumes of cross-border transactions.

Growing traction among global financial institutions

Despite being relatively new, Checker reports growing adoption among institutional clients.

Over the past year, it has onboarded partners including Rail, Braza Bank in Brazil, and Belo in Argentina, while scaling to approximately $3 billion in total processing volume.

Revenue is generated through transaction fees charged on payments processed via its infrastructure layer.

The company is entering a competitive segment of global payments infrastructure providers, alongside firms building stablecoin and blockchain-enabled settlement systems, as competition intensifies to define the backend rails of next-generation financial networks.

Africa’s evolving role in stablecoin infrastructure

Checker’s expansion comes as Africa increasingly becomes a testing ground for new payment rails, driven by currency volatility, high remittance costs, and fragmented banking systems.

Recent industry moves underscore the momentum. In July 2025, the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) launched the African Currency Marketplace, a blockchain-based platform designed to enable direct currency exchange between African countries without relying on the US dollar.

In October 2025, Flutterwave also selected Polygon as its blockchain partner for stablecoin-powered cross-border payments, further signalling mainstream fintech adoption of digital asset infrastructure.

Checker says its long-term strategy is to deepen partnerships with regulated institutions while expanding compliance capabilities across jurisdictions as governments continue to refine stablecoin frameworks.

The company believes the convergence of regulation and infrastructure maturity will unlock broader institutional adoption of stablecoin-powered settlement systems.

Talking Points

It is significant that Checker is building stablecoin-powered payment infrastructure that allows regulated financial institutions to connect multiple markets through a single API integration, reducing the long-standing fragmentation in cross-border payments.

This approach positions Checker as a potential backbone for the next phase of global financial infrastructure, particularly for emerging markets where settlement delays and currency inefficiencies remain persistent challenges.

At Techparley, we see how infrastructure like this could reshape how African and other emerging-market financial institutions access liquidity, manage FX exposure, and process international transactions in real time.

The ability to plug banks, neobanks, and remittance providers into a unified orchestration layer across 75 currencies suggests a structural shift away from siloed payment systems towards networked financial interoperability.

As the stablecoin infrastructure space becomes increasingly competitive, there is a clear opportunity for Checker to deepen partnerships with regulated institutions, expand embedded financial products, and strengthen its AI-driven treasury tools to solidify its position as a core layer in global payments infrastructure.

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