Kotani Pay

Kotani Pay is a Nairobi, Kenya-based fintech infrastructure company that bridges blockchain networks and African local payment systems. Founded in 2020, the company operates as an on-ramp and off-ramp gateway, enabling individuals and businesses to convert stablecoins and digital assets into local currencies — and vice versa — through channels that work on any mobile phone, including basic feature phones with no internet access.

The Problem It Solves

Sub-Saharan Africa presents a sharp paradox for crypto adoption: on-chain transaction volume in the region exceeded $205 billion between July 2024 and June 2025, a 52% year-on-year increase, yet more than half of the adult population remains unbanked. Traditional remittance corridors charge fees as high as 20% per transfer. Smartphones and reliable internet access are far from universal, and official identification required by formal financial services excludes millions of workers, refugees, and rural farmers.

Kotani Pay is built specifically to resolve this last-mile problem. Rather than requiring users to download wallets or own smartphones, it routes blockchain transactions through USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) — the same dial-code menus used by basic mobile money services across Africa. Any GSM phone can initiate a transaction.

How It Works

At its core, Kotani Pay is a middleware layer. On one side sits the blockchain — stablecoin balances on networks including Celo, Stellar, Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Cardano, Lisk, Viction, and the Lightning Network, totalling 15 or more supported chains. On the other side sit Africa's mobile money networks, local banks, and cash agents.

When a user initiates a cash-out via USSD, Kotani Pay's system reads the stablecoin balance, converts it at market rate, and pushes the equivalent local currency to the user's mobile money wallet — services such as M-Pesa in Kenya or MTN Mobile Money in Ghana and Zambia. Businesses integrating via API can automate this flow for bulk disbursements, payroll, and last-mile distribution.

The company describes this architecture as a "STK Push" flow: no app install required, no wallet seed phrase to manage, and no smartphone dependency. For populations where USSD already handles airtime top-ups, savings, and payments, the learning curve is near zero.

Products and Services

On-Ramp / Off-Ramp API — A white-label API that crypto platforms, neobanks, and fintech applications use to offer African users local currency withdrawals from stablecoin balances. Integrations have included Celo's Valora wallet, Yellowcard, Fonbank, and Mercy Corps.

Stablecoin Settlement Solution — An over-the-counter service that lets businesses hold and settle in dollar-pegged stablecoins (USDT, USDC, and Celo's cUSD) rather than local currency, protecting against exchange-rate volatility while maintaining access to local payment rails.

SMS Wallet — A text-message-based blockchain wallet that allows users to store and transact without internet access. Kotani acts as the middleware, managing the on-chain operations on the user's behalf.

Last-Mile Payout Services — Bulk disbursement tooling for organizations distributing aid, wages, or grants to recipients across dispersed geographies.

Reconset and Money Ledger — Planned product additions focused on reconciliation-as-a-service and ledger-as-a-service for businesses managing multi-currency digital asset flows.

Supported Assets and Markets

Kotani Pay processes transactions involving USDT, USDC, and cUSD stablecoins. The platform operates in Kenya, Ghana, Zambia, and South Africa, with active expansion into Tanzania, Rwanda, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria. As of 2023, Kotani had processed approximately $23 million in transaction volume, with an average B2B transaction size of around $150,000 and a revenue model built on approximately 1% interchange fees.

Team and History

Kotani Pay was co-founded in 2020 by Felix Macharia (CEO), Samuel Kariuki (COO), Brian Kimotho (CMO), and Jonathan Morgan (CPO). Lemuel Okoli, founder of Fuhlstack — a Nigerian blockchain backend provider Kotani later acquired — joined as a co-founder after the acquisition, strengthening the company's engineering depth across East and West Africa.

The team has grown to include a VP of Forex, a Compliance Officer, regional directors, and product and engineering leads, reflecting the company's multi-market regulatory and operational footprint.

Funding and Investors

Kotani Pay has completed multiple funding rounds since founding. In 2023, the company announced a $2 million pre-seed raise led by P1 Ventures, with participation from Digital Currency Group (Luno), Flori Ventures, Adaverse, Peer VC, and Wuri Ventures. Earlier support came from the UNICEF Venture Fund, Catapult: Inclusion Africa, and a $100,000 grant from the Stellar Community Fund. Gitcoin and IBM have also recognized the platform.

In October 2025, Tether — the largest stablecoin issuer in the digital asset industry — announced a strategic investment in Kotani Pay. The investment is intended to expand the platform's role in Africa's stablecoin payment stack and deepen access to USDT-based settlement for SMEs and corporate clients in emerging markets.

Regulatory Standing

Kotani Pay is registered as a Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) and a Financial Service Provider with South Africa's Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA license #53594). The company is also pursuing regulatory approvals in Ghana and Zambia as it expands its licensed footprint.

Ecosystem Position

Kotani Pay occupies a distinct role in the broader digital asset ecosystem: rather than building a consumer wallet or a DEX, it builds the plumbing that allows other crypto platforms to extend reach into African markets. Its blockchain-agnostic approach — supporting 15 or more chains — lets it serve customers regardless of which network their stablecoin inventory sits on. The Tether investment signals that major stablecoin issuers see infrastructure like Kotani's as critical to real-world adoption in high-growth, underserved markets. By combining regulatory compliance, multi-chain API support, and USSD accessibility, Kotani Pay functions as a practical settlement rail for the continent's fast-growing on-chain economy.