Each few weeks, James Mugambi meets one other freelancer who has executed the work however can’t contact their cash. Funds from Upwork or PayPal arrive late, sit in limbo for weeks, or vanish right into a maze of financial institution companions and compliance checks, whereas lease and college charges don’t wait.
Hurupay, a Nairobi-based cross-border fintech he co-founded in 2023, is attempting to untangle that mess.
The startup offers African freelancers with digital greenback, euro, and pound accounts backed by stablecoins, to obtain worldwide payouts like US-based employees and money out to native financial institution accounts or cell cash.
Since January 2025, Hurupay has processed over $50 million in funds and is now marginally worthwhile, in response to Mugambi, the startup’s Chief Working Officer (COO).
Hurupay is betting {that a} slim deal with distant employees, lean operations, and stablecoin rails can help a sustainable enterprise in considered one of Africa’s most crowded fintech markets. The guess has a tailwind: stablecoins already account for a minimum of 43% of all crypto transaction quantity in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the area moved over $205 billion in on-chain worth between July 2024 and June 2025, in response to blockchain analytics agency Chainalysis.
“Our numbers are nonetheless rookie numbers in comparison with [bigger players] on the market,” Mugambi mentioned. “We’re worthwhile, sure, however as a startup, you must have a look at profitability relative to how a lot development you continue to need to pursue.”
Philip Mburu (Chief Government Officer), Allan Okoth (Chief Know-how Officer), and Mugambi based Hurupay in 2023 as a standard remittance product shifting cash from one nation to a different.
The workforce deserted that mannequin in November 2024, after concluding that Africa’s remittance market was too crowded to help significant scale, with tons of of startups already competing on worth and velocity.
Africa’s cross-border remittance house is already full of conventional giants like Western Union and MoneyGram, world fintechs comparable to Sensible and Revolut, and an extended listing of African startups, together with LemFi, Chipper Money, NALA, Klasha, Raenest, Ship by Flutterwave, and Fincra, all chasing the identical corridors with comparable “ship cash residence” merchandise.
Hurupay, at present run by a 10-person workforce, now centres its product on freelancers and distant employees who earn in {dollars} or euros, however battle to obtain funds into their native financial institution accounts or cell cash.
“Freelancers already use platforms like PayPal and Sensible, however they encounter a variety of issues there,” Mugambi mentioned. “Funds get withheld for months, accounts get flagged due to geographical location, or employers merely can not ship cash simply to rising markets.”
Constructing a funds layer for freelancers
Hurupay’s product works like a world receiving account for distant employees. Customers join and full identification verification within the Hurupay app; as soon as accepted, they obtain digital financial institution accounts denominated in {dollars}, euros, or kilos, which they will add as payout locations on platforms comparable to Upwork, Fiverr, PayPal, and Stripe.
“While you create a Hurupay account, we provide you with a greenback account, a euro account, and a pound account,” Mugambi mentioned. “Freelancers in rising markets can then obtain funds from platforms within the US or Europe as in the event that they had been residents of these nations, and as soon as the cash lands, they will withdraw it regionally.”
Underneath the hood, Hurupay combines its personal pockets infrastructure with licenced banking and payout companions. Banks within the US and Europe situation digital accounts, whereas native companions in nations comparable to Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana deal with cashouts to financial institution accounts and cell cash.
Funds obtained are sometimes transformed into dollar-backed stablecoins, comparable to USD Coin (USDC) or USD Tether (USDT), and mirrored in a person’s pockets steadiness earlier than being withdrawn by way of native rails or crypto.
Okoth mentioned the actual issue lies in getting multi-step transfers to clear throughout fragmented techniques that don’t talk with one another.
“A single switch touches US banks, stablecoin conversion, routing, and native payouts, and any of these steps can fail or be delayed, so we’ve constructed our personal custody, gasless stablecoin transfers [so users don’t need to hold Ether or BNB for fees], and retry techniques on high of an engine that routes transactions throughout a number of suppliers in every area,” mentioned Okoth.
Mburu says Hurupay’s mannequin can be about managing danger in an setting the place entry to banks and licences can change rapidly.
“The largest danger is focus danger round banking and regulatory entry,” he mentioned. “We handle that by diversifying companions, constructing robust compliance capabilities in-house, and utilizing stablecoin rails to scale back our dependence on any single establishment or market.”
Hurupay earns a 2% charge on each incoming fee, plus a community cost of about $0.50 that covers associate and blockchain prices. Mugambi mentioned the corporate at present operates with roughly 40% revenue margins, incomes about $0.40 for each $1 it spends.
Inner dashboard knowledge seen by TechCabal reveals that Hurupay processed over $10 million in complete fee quantity (TPV) in February 2026 alone, together with transfers routed to exterior wallets, and generated greater than $500,000 in income over the previous 12 months. The startup processed about 90% of its quantity on Base, the layer-1 blockchain community.
The subsequent step for Hurupay, mentioned Mugambi, is to develop from its present run charge to a a lot larger degree of transaction volumes, shifting from roughly $10 million in month-to-month funds towards $100 million processed every month over time.
“These are the form of numbers we’re taking a look at to unlock the following degree,” he mentioned.
A fraud hit and a compliance reset
Hurupay’s development was briefly knocked off track in March 2025, when suspected fraud on the platform compelled the startup to pause exercise on elements of the product and rebuild its compliance stack. Transaction volumes dropped sharply because the startup investigated suspicious flows and tightened onboarding.
“Similar to another fintech, we had been hit by the truth of fraud,” Mugambi mentioned. “Our volumes tanked by over 80% at one level as a result of we needed to pause, clear up the system, and ensure dangerous actors might now not entry the platform.”
One sample concerned mule accounts: customers who offered or handed over their verified Hurupay accounts to 3rd events in alternate for fast money, solely to later discover that stolen cash had been routed via these accounts and traced again to them, mentioned Mugambi.
Different assaults concerned easy account takeovers, the place scammers gained management of customers’ electronic mail and two-factor authentication after which modified withdrawal particulars.
Hurupay didn’t present particular particulars in regards to the complete worth of fraudulent transactions, however mentioned it responded by overhauling its compliance stack. Mugambi mentioned the startup now makes use of world know-your-customer (KYC) and identification verification suppliers, comparable to Persona, to onboard customers and flag suspicious units and IP addresses. It additionally displays transactions for uncommon patterns, working with banking companions to share intelligence.
“Compliance must be taken significantly from the start,” Mugambi mentioned. “The larger lesson is that compliance rapidly turns into one of many largest value centres for fintech startups in Africa.”
A crowded market and a slim goal
Hurupay’s area of interest sits inside considered one of Africa’s best fintech segments. The continent’s cross-border funds market is valued at about $329 billion and is projected to achieve $1 trillion by 2035, in response to a report by enterprise capital agency Oui Capital.
A rising share of that quantity comes from freelancers and distant employees paid by world platforms fairly than by associates or household.
“Distant employees are our candy spot,” Mugambi mentioned. “The distant work market is already price greater than $100 billion. That’s a large enough market that even [capturing] a small 5% share can be significant for us.”
Hurupay isn’t alone in chasing that chance. Pan-African fintech NALA has been pushing its stablecoin-powered Rafiki product to freelance platform payouts, whereas Kenyan startup Payd and Nigerian fintech startups Raenest and Gray additionally allow distant employees to create digital accounts or obtain funds in digital currencies and entry native cashout choices.
Lots of these merchandise, like Hurupay, sit between world platforms and native monetary techniques, utilizing stablecoins as a settlement layer and native companions for off-ramps.
But, Mburu argues that the startup’s edge doesn’t merely lie in its deal with freelancers, however in the way it packages the underlying infrastructure powering funds.
“Hurupay is constructing greater than a freelancer funds product; we’re constructing on-chain greenback banking for individuals and companies outdoors the US,” he mentioned. “What is tough to repeat is our means to mix stablecoins, compliance, and banking infrastructure right into a easy product that appears like fashionable finance, not crypto.”
Rising with out overfunding
Hurupay has raised $150,000 in pre-seed funding and has not raised new fairness since March 2025, counting on working income to fund development. The strategy, in response to Mburu, is a deliberate try to check the extent of scale their product can obtain with out deep exterior funding.
“We imagine capital ought to amplify product-market match, not substitute for it,” mentioned Mburu. “Reaching marginal profitability this early has given us the self-discipline to deal with environment friendly development, and to lift solely after we are assured the capital will assist us compound one thing already confirmed.”
After the fraud-induced dip in 2025, Mugambi says month-to-month volumes have climbed steadily, with every month outperforming the final. Founder-led advertising and marketing, focused advertisements, and direct engagement with freelancer communities drive most new customers, and referrals now account for a significant share of signups.
Hurupay plans so as to add playing cards and extra payout choices, however growth is dependent upon how rapidly it may safe and combine new licensed companions in every nation.
“We expect we’ve constructed sufficient to indicate there may be product-market match,” Mugambi mentioned. “This yr is about development, development, development; supporting extra prospects, increasing our choices, and being much more dependable.”
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