South African fintech startup Lumepay has disclosed a $6 million pre-seed funding round and launched its payments service in Kenya after receiving regulatory clearance from the Central Bank of Kenya, expanding its effort to simplify cross-border transactions for African businesses.
The funding round closed at the beginning of 2026 and was backed by founder-led angel investors and South African fintech investors, according to the company.
Lumepay also secured approximately $10 million in capital float to support liquidity for customers making international payments.
The company provides cross-border payment infrastructure for small and medium-sized enterprises, large corporations and financial institutions that need to pay overseas suppliers, manage foreign exchange and transfer money between African markets.
Its entry into Kenya gives local businesses another option for paying international suppliers in currencies including the Chinese yuan, US dollar and Indian rupee.
Lumepay Chief Executive Harry Huang said the company combines traditional financial infrastructure with digital asset-based settlement systems to address the challenges associated with international payments.
“The future of cross-border payments isn’t traditional finance or stablecoins; it’s a combination of both, backed by the FX depth to make them work for real businesses,” Huang said.
“That’s how we’ve built Lumepay: a rail-agnostic platform that works at the intersection between the two.” MyBroadband
