The Stellar Community Fund (SCF) awarded about $4.04 million worth of XLM to 40 projects in its 45th funding round with 5 of those projects explicitly focused on African markets.

The Africa-focused projects span

  • stablecoin banking,

  • cross-border payments,

  • trade finance, and

  • local-currency settlement,

highlighting the continued emphasis on connecting dollar-denominated digital assets with existing African financial infrastructure.

 

Kotani Pay Wins $100,000 Grant from the Stellar Development Foundation

Below are the winning projects:

 

1.) Sorted – $150,000

Sorted is building a stablecoin banking app for users with Android Go, older or basic phones and intermittent connectivity.

The project specifically targets users in Africa and South Asia, seeking to provide access to digital dollars without requiring users to navigate crypto-native wallets, gas fees or bridging.

 

2.) Minisend — $100,000

Minisend is building a Stellar-based settlement rail that allows users to send USDC and receive local currency through M-PESA, Airtel Money, and bank accounts in Africa.

The project uses Stellar’s anchor standards and Circle’s CCTP infrastructure to connect stablecoins with local payment rails.

 

@StellarOrg is backing us with $100k grant to keep building.

Stablecoins move across multiple chains, but getting that liquidity into local payment rails can still mean dealing with bridges, gas, fragmented liquidity and P2P.

We’re building Minisend to connect those onchain… pic.twitter.com/ZF4UZJfmYn

— Minisend (@minisendapp) September 30, 2026

3.) Kutana — $97,000

Kutana is a B2B cross-border trade platform for African SMEs.

Its Trade Secure product uses USDC on Stellar for milestone-based escrow, with funds released as trade milestones are completed. The model is aimed at reducing some of the payment and trust frictions involved in cross-border African trade.

 

4.) Lomi. — $95,000

lomi. is building a Stellar bridge and anchor for XOF/USDC, connecting its payment infrastructure to the eight-country West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) market.

The integration connects mobile-money and card payments to Stellar-based settlement, giving stablecoins a bridge into Francophone West African payment infrastructure.

 

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5.) SlimePay — $35,000

Slimepay is building a Stellar anchor and merchant settlement rail for African currencies, with its initial infrastructure focused on USDC-to-NGN payments.

The project uses Stellar’s SEP-6, SEP-24 and SEP-31 standards to connect customer accounts and local bank rails to the network.

 

Taken together, the five projects show a fairly consistent direction for Stellar’s Africa strategy in this funding round.

The focus is not primarily on speculative crypto applications. It is on stablecoin access, local-currency conversion, cross-border settlement and trade infrastructure.

In other words, the common thread is the connection between global digital dollars and existing African financial rails – from M-PESA and Airtel Money to bank accounts, mobile-money networks, and B2B trade.

Five of 40 funded projects represents 12.5% of SCF Round #45, making Africa a notable geographic theme within the cohort.

 

 

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