As payment companies increasingly explore stablecoins for cross-border payments and real-time settlement, some startups are capitalizing on this trend by providing liquidity through a revolving line of credit in stablecoins.
One such company is Dubai-based Mansa, which enables payment companies, primarily in Africa, to settle transactions and fund customer accounts instantly. Mansa has raised $10 million in seed funding, including both equity and debt, with Tether leading the $3 million equity investment.
The investment will aid Mansa’s expansion into Latin America and Southeast Asia, regions facing similar liquidity challenges that hamper cross-border transactions. The company claims its model enhances clients’ cash flow at a lower cost than fiat alternatives, thereby positioning itself as a significant player in the evolution of payments. Its co-founders, CEO Mouloukou Sanoh and COO Nkiru Uwaje, possess extensive experience in finance, payments, and web3.
Sanoh, who has invested in several African fintech companies, previously worked at web3 VC firm Adaverse. Uwaje was an innovation manager at SWIFT and led blockchain strategy for Dell in the U.K. and Ireland.
Cross-border payments remain essential to global commerce, but many providers face liquidity shortages, leading to delayed settlements and increased operational costs, especially in emerging markets. Remittance costs average 6.5% globally, affecting developing regions disproportionately. With cross-border payments expected to reach $290.2 trillion annually by 2030, inefficiencies in the current system could result in substantial costs to businesses.
Mansa addresses this by offering rapid, flexible embedded pre-funding solutions, completing due diligence in under a month. Unlike traditional lenders, Mansa underwrites loans based on real-time transaction data instead of collateral while sourcing liquidity at scale through decentralized finance (DeFi). It aggregates capital from DeFi platforms, quant funds, family offices, and hedge funds.
For its seed funding round, Mansa secured $7 million in liquidity from these institutions. Other investors participating in the equity round alongside Tether include Faculty Group, Octerra Capital, Polymorphic Capital, and Trive Digital.
Mansa’s CEO Sanoh emphasized the importance of on-chain liquidity, especially in emerging markets, and highlighted the significant partnership with Tether in achieving this. Despite the rapid growth of USDC last year, Mansa remains optimistic about Tether’s USDT due to its broad accessibility, usage flexibility, and market dominance, which continue to expand with the rise in on-chain payment activity.
While Tether and other digital assets were delisted from EU-regulated platforms for non-compliance with MiCA standards, Tether still holds 70% of the global stablecoin market share in terms of trading volume. Mansa remains focused on regulatory compliance, recently strengthening its oversight with hires from HSBC North Asia and Franklin Templeton.
The company is developing robust risk frameworks for liquidity and payments, ensuring compliance with AML checks, sanction screening, KYC, KYB, active transaction monitoring, and blockchain analytics tools, according to Nkiru Uwaje.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino expressed pride in collaborating with Mansa to support their efforts to reshape global payment infrastructure. Mansa has disbursed over $18 million in payments to clients, with access to over $200 million in liquidity through its partner network, reporting no defaults to date.
Mansa’s transaction volume has grown significantly since its launch, from $1.6 million last August to $11 million in January, with a monthly growth rate of 37.5%. It has processed nearly $31 million in this period and aims to reach a $1 billion total payment volume run rate this year, up from its current $240 million run rate, according to CEO Sanoh.
The two-year-old fintech serves a diverse range of clients, including B2B payment platforms, virtual card providers, stablecoin infrastructure, forex platforms, and remittance companies operating in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. These clients have reported a 30% increase in transaction volumes and a 10% revenue boost since engaging with Mansa. The fintech’s revenues, generated from fees on financed transactions, have grown 350% in the past six months.
Mansa’s initial focus is on lending, but it aims to broaden its services. CEO Sanoh stated that Mansa intends to become the primary liquidity provider to major payment companies in emerging markets, eventually managing payouts and offering services like foreign exchange. This expansion could see Mansa become an on-chain version of Stripe, Sanoh suggested.
