Stellar deepens its Africa push with CV Labs accelerator as competition for stablecoin rails grows
Stellar Development Foundation
The signal
CV Labs is continuing its annual accelerator programme with the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF). For blockchain networks, such programmes also bring startups into their ecosystems, often with participants expected to build on or integrate with the network.
Swiss blockchain venture firm CV Labs and Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) have selected 10 startups for their joint accelerator, with six building for African markets. SDF is the non-profit building and growing the Stellar blockchain.
The news: The 12-week programme will support startups building on or planning to integrate Stellar for markets across Africa, Europe and the Middle East.
- Each startup can receive up to $150,000 in XLM, plus mentorship, technical guidance and ecosystem support.
Why it matters: Stablecoins are increasingly influential across African economies, creating a growing market for the networks such as Stellar that provide the rails.
- SDF has pursued that market for years through investments in Cowrie, Wave, Stax and Afriex, as well as programmes with partners such as DFS Lab.
- Partnering with CV Labs for its 2026 accelerator is another push to gain market share.
- Notably, it is narrower than CV Labs’ earlier African cohorts, which spanned agriculture, healthcare, property, media and clean energy.
Go deeper: CV Labs has run blockchain accelerator programmes since 2018, connecting protocols with startups, capital and ecosystem support.
- The venture firm has partnered with multiple blockchain protocols, including Lisk in Africa, as well as Algorand, Cardano and ICP through other programmes.
- Notably, its new SDF-backed accelerator has a narrower focus. All 10 companies are building across stablecoins, payments, wallets, treasury, trade finance, DeFi and tokenised credit. Past cohorts have been more diverse, spanning agriculture, healthcare, property, media and clean energy.
The companies: Six of the 10 startups are building for African markets, exclusively or in part.
- They include Kutana, an African trade finance company, and JoonaPay, which helps businesses in Francophone Africa collect payments and manage treasury.
- Tether-backed Sorted, a non-custodial wallet infrastructure for Africa and South Asia, also made the cut.
- Yolat, a stablecoin fintech serving users in Nigeria, South Africa, Canada and Europe, is also in the cohort. Remi and Saleem round out the companies serving African and MENA markets.
- The remaining four are settlement liquidity provider DeFa, cross-border payments company Crebit Pay, trade finance infrastructure firm Janus and Sly, which is building on-chain identity infrastructure for AI agents.