Flutterwave partner Kulipa secures $6.2 million to bring Stablecoin-funded payment cards to Nigeria

Stablecoin adoption across Africa has been on the increase, and a new partnership is bridging the gap between digital wallets and everyday consumer spending. Kulipa, a Paris-based stablecoin-native card-issuing platform, has raised $6.2 million in seed funding to expand its operations across emerging markets, with a prominent focus on Nigeria and Africa.

The seed round, co-led by Flourish Ventures and 1kx with participation from White Star Capital and Fabric Ventures, brings the startup’s total funding to $9.2 million. Crucially for the African fintech ecosystem, Kulipa already boasts regulated coverage within Nigeria and has partnered with continental payments giant Flutterwave to deploy its infrastructure.

Nigeria remains one of the world’s fastest-growing crypto markets, largely driven by everyday users and businesses seeking stablecoins as a hedge against local currency volatility and as a means for cross-border trade. However, despite stablecoins settling over $300 billion daily worldwide, converting these digital assets into local fiat for everyday transactions, from grocery shopping to ATM withdrawals, remains a fragmented and often costly process.

Kulipa aims to eradicate this friction. By offering a compliant, globally scalable issuing infrastructure, the platform allows digital banks, payroll providers, and local fintechs to issue globally accepted payment cards funded directly from users’ stablecoin balances. Cards issued through Kulipa function exactly like traditional bank debit cards and are accepted anywhere major card networks operate.

What Kulipa and Flutterwave partnership means for the crypto ecosystem

For Flutterwave, this integration marks a significant leap forward in extending the practical utility of crypto assets across the continent. “At Flutterwave, we’re focused on building payment infrastructure that works across markets at scale,” said Olugbenga Agboola, Founder and CEO of Flutterwave. “As stablecoins become a more practical settlement option, it’s important that businesses can turn those balances into real-world spending. Partnering with Kulipa allows us to extend stablecoin value into globally accepted payments in a compliant, scalable way.”

What sets Kulipa apart from traditional, capital-intensive crypto card programmes is its on-chain settlement mechanism. Verifying stablecoin balances and triggering settlement directly on the con-chain platform bypasses the need for collateral-heavy prefunding structures. This allows regional fintechs to scale much more sustainably. Furthermore, Kulipa assumes fraud liability on its issued programmes, lifting a massive operational burden off the shoulders of its African partners.

“Stablecoins have proved their value as a settlement layer, but using them in everyday financial products is still early,” noted Axel Cateland, Founder and CEO of Kulipa. “Card issuance is the bridge between on-chain transactions and real-world payments. We built Kulipa to give regulated fintech platforms the compliant, capital-efficient infrastructure they need to operate at a global scale.”

Since launching its infrastructure in February 2025, Kulipa has experienced rapid adoption. The company has already issued over 120,000 cards and secured 20 enterprise customers, including Solflare, nSave, and Ready, alongside Flutterwave. The platform is currently recording a massive 70% month-over-month growth in transaction volume. This momentum is backed by a heavyweight founding team: Cateland previously spearheaded global Apple Pay and Google Pay deployments at Mastercard, while CTO Michael Shynar spent a decade as a Google staff engineer and built commerce infrastructure for WhatsApp.

Investors see this as a critical turning point for digital assets in emerging markets. “We’re seeing stablecoins moving beyond cross-border settlement and becoming part of real financial infrastructure,” said Ameya Upadhyay, General Partner at Flourish Ventures. Christopher Heymann, Founding Partner at 1kx, echoed this sentiment, adding that for mainstream adoption to occur, “people need to spend them as easily as they spend fiat”.

As African consumers continue to embrace decentralised finance, the missing piece of the puzzle has consistently been compliant, scalable card issuance. With fresh capital, established Nigerian regulatory coverage, and the backing of industry leaders, Kulipa is positioning itself as the critical infrastructure layer that will finally make spending stablecoins as easy as swiping a traditional bank card.

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