Alliance Backs Kenya’s Cloud9 With $500,000 for Cross-Border Payments
Alliance invested $500,000 in Kenyan fintech Cloud9 as the company expands from digital banking into cross-border payments, stablecoin settlement and business accounts after two acquisitions.
TechCabal reports that Alliance has invested $500,000 in equity in Cloud9, giving the Kenyan fintech fresh pre-seed capital as it moves from digital banking into cross-border payment infrastructure for African businesses.
The New York-headquartered crypto accelerator’s check sits inside an ongoing pre-seed round that also includes Techstars NYC and strategic angel investors.
The round brings Cloud9’s total funding to $1 million, and it follows two acquisitions in three months that pushed the company closer to merchants, event organisers and social-commerce sellers.
Cloud9 has earmarked the capital for new payment routes, product work, card issuance and customer growth across consumers and businesses.
Since launching in early 2026, the platform has opened above 25,000 accounts and is recording weekly transaction-volume growth above 15%.
The operating thesis is broader than a business wallet.
Users can keep balances in Kenyan shillings, US dollars, euros, pounds and Chinese yuan, route supplier money across a country list that exceeds 100 markets, collect through virtual accounts and move cash back into mobile-money channels.
Behind that interface, Cloud9 says its treasury reach spans more than 120 countries and connects African collections with local-currency payouts and supplier routes into Mainland China, Hong Kong, India and Southeast Asia.
Stablecoins are part of the settlement machinery behind those services.
A payment can start in dollars, euros or Kenyan shillings, then Cloud9 can use USDC or USDT internally to bridge the countries and currencies involved.
Founder and chief executive Tesh Mbaabu framed the aim as giving a Nairobi merchant the same ease in paying a Guangzhou supplier as a nearby seller, with geography no longer setting the boundary for trade.
The company’s recent acquisitions give that payment stack more places to attach.
Its May purchase of M-Tickets, a Kenyan ticketing business, was an all-stock deal valued at roughly KES 100 million, or $773,000.
A second all-stock transaction in August brought in Chpter, whose social-commerce customers sell and manage buyer conversations on channels such as WhatsApp and Instagram.
Cloud9 makes money when payments move, using foreign-exchange margins and transaction charges, and some wallets and multi-currency accounts carry monthly fees.
The business-account suite also covers payroll, bulk transfers and approval workflows, while Cloud9 Wealth adds savings vaults and access to global stock markets for Kenyan users.
Mbaabu and Mesongo Sibuti launched Cloud9 in October 2025 after leaving Chpter, where both had served as co-founders.
Their quick return to Chpter as a buyer shows how the fintech is trying to convert existing commerce relationships into payment flows rather than building demand only through a standalone banking app.
The company is entering a Kenyan payments market where Safaricom’s M-Pesa remains deeply embedded in everyday transactions and providers such as Pesapal, Flutterwave and Wise already serve businesses with collection and cross-border payment tools.
China is a natural corridor for that pitch: Kenyan purchases from the country reached $4.31 billion in 2024, giving Cloud9 a commercial lane where stablecoin settlement can sit in the back office rather than appear as a standalone crypto product.
Alliance general partner Imran Khan described stablecoins as an emerging settlement layer for global trade and framed Africa as a market where that shift matters most.
Cloud9’s next test is whether its acquisition-led distribution and treasury network can make that settlement layer useful enough for merchants that still need local currency, supplier reach and ordinary business controls in one account.
