David Nandwa, a 19-year-old software engineer, experienced a frozen $5,000 payment from PayPal, which became the catalyst for his fintech venture. This personal frustration fueled the creation of Honeycoin, a platform designed to connect blockchain technology with traditional financial systems across Africa. Today, Honeycoin processes over $150 million in monthly transactions across 40 markets, having secured nearly $6 million in funding.
Key Takeaways
- Honeycoin processes over $150 million monthly in 40 African markets.
- The company aims to reach $1 billion in monthly transaction volume within six months.
- Founded by David Nandwa after a personal experience with frozen funds.
- Honeycoin merges stablecoins, blockchain, and traditional financial rails.
- The platform has raised nearly $6 million in funding.
From Personal Frustration to Fintech Innovation
Nandwa’s journey began five years ago when a $5,000 payment for freelance work was frozen by PayPal for three months. The payment giant cited his country as a high-risk jurisdiction. This incident served as a significant wake-up call for the then 19-year-old developer.
“It was a wake-up call,” Nandwa stated. “Here I was, a developer building global systems, and I couldn’t access my own money. I realised Africans weren’t just excluded from opportunities, we were excluded from access. And I had the skills to do something about it.”
This experience led to the founding of Honeycoin in 2020 during the pandemic lockdown. Nandwa now serves as the Founder, CEO, and CTO of the rapidly expanding fintech platform.
Quick Fact
Honeycoin currently serves over 800 enterprise clients and more than 200,000 consumers across the African continent.
Building on Early Coding Skills and Industry Experience
Nandwa’s passion for computers began at a young age, encouraged by his engineer father. By age nine, he was teaching himself to code, and by his teens, he was proficient in multiple programming languages, including Ruby, C, Python, and JavaScript.
His early career included building and exiting two startups, one of which was an e-commerce platform in Dar es Salaam that achieved nearly $1 million in annual revenue before its acquisition. A crucial turning point came with his time at Flutterwave, an African payments unicorn, where he spent nearly two years as a software engineer.
“Flutterwave was my classroom,” Nandwa explained. “I saw how hard it is to scale financial infrastructure in Africa, how much you depend on third-party systems that can fail at any time.”
This experience highlighted the fragmented and unreliable nature of treasury and liquidity systems in emerging markets, driving his belief that a new infrastructure built on blockchain rails was necessary for speed, resilience, and global reach.
Honeycoin: A Borderless Financial System for Africa
Honeycoin started with a simple vision: to make sending money between African cities as easy as sending it between major global hubs. The initial product was a consumer app allowing users to hold and send stablecoins like USDT and USDC, pegged to the U.S. dollar, across various markets without relying on traditional banks or SWIFT transfers.
As the platform gained traction, businesses began seeking similar technology, including APIs, stablecoin infrastructure, and blockchain rails. This demand led Honeycoin to evolve from a consumer-focused app to a B2B infrastructure provider.
The company now provides a unified platform for businesses to issue stablecoin wallets, access banking infrastructure, send cards, and integrate with global blockchain payment rails through simple APIs. This approach offers a resilient alternative to imported infrastructure like SWIFT, Visa, and PayPal, which can often be inaccessible or unreliable in Africa.
According to Nandwa, Honeycoin processes more than $150 million every month, translating to nearly $2 billion in annualized volume, and its growth continues rapidly.
Context: Stablecoins in Africa
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to minimize price volatility, typically by pegging their value to a stable asset like the U.S. dollar. In regions with volatile local currencies, stablecoins offer a more predictable and reliable medium for transactions and value storage.
Strategic Partnerships and Ambitious Growth Targets
Honeycoin has forged significant partnerships to fuel its expansion. A key collaboration is with Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer. This partnership began with a casual meeting and evolved into a multi-million-dollar deal, including a six-figure non-dilutive grant and a liquidity program to enhance payment access across Africa.
The company also partners with other major players like Binance and Stellar, alongside African fintechs such as GG, TapaSend, and Nala, which leverage Honeycoin’s infrastructure for seamless cross-border fund movements.
“Right now, we process about $150 million monthly, and our goal is to hit $1 billion a month within six months. With Tether and other partners like Binance and Stellar, we think that’s achievable,” Nandwa stated.
These partnerships are crucial for Honeycoin’s vision of making financial borders an invisible concept. The company is even exploring collaborations with traditional systems like SWIFT and has already partnered with Stripe and Paystack, while engaging with the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS).
Navigating the Regulatory Landscape and Securing Funding
Nandwa highlights Africa’s regulatory “grey area” as a unique advantage for innovation. Many markets do not explicitly ban or regulate stablecoins, creating an environment where fintechs can experiment and grow. He notes a significant volume of stablecoin trade in Francophone Africa, indicating a quiet but active frontier for digital currencies.
Honeycoin operates by staying close to regulators where necessary, while moving quickly in countries where regulations are still developing. The company holds various licenses globally, including MSB and Payment Service Solutions Provider (PSSP) licenses in Canada, a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) license in Europe, and MSB approval in the U.S. In Africa, it has secured Letters of No Objection (LNOs) from regulators in Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania.
Honeycoin has raised close to $6 million to date, with $4.5 million secured this year. This is a notable achievement in Africa’s challenging venture capital climate. The latest equity round was led by Flourish Ventures, with participation from TLcom Capital, Stellar Development Foundation, Lava, Musha Ventures, 4DX Ventures, Antler, and Visa Ventures.
Nandwa noted the challenges in fundraising, including convincing investors about Africa’s immense financial expansion opportunities and managing currency volatility. However, he remains optimistic about building more African success stories that scale globally, aiming for a future where financial transactions are truly borderless.
