Circle Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Circle Internet Group, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, has made an undisclosed investment in CrissCross, a South Africa-based cross-border payments infrastructure company. The investment was made through Stitch Group, the parent company of CrissCross, and will go toward expanding local payment connections and liquidity, building out stablecoin settlement capabilities for enterprise clients, and growing the team serving businesses across the continent.
CrissCross was founded by Lex Campbell and Byron Coetsee to make cross-border payments more efficient for enterprises operating across African markets. The company gives businesses a single API to collect payments, make payouts, manage multi-currency funds, and convert between local currencies, US dollars, and euros. Customers can collect via bank transfers, mobile money, and cards, and send individual or bulk payments straight to local bank accounts and mobile wallets.
What makes CrissCross's approach distinct is how it blends blockchain-based settlement with local fiat networks. A business can move value across markets using stablecoins, while the recipient receives local currency directly in their bank account or mobile wallet. The company picks between stablecoin and fiat rails depending on each client's needs around speed, cost, and compliance, and earns revenue from the payments and currency conversions it processes.
This Circle Ventures investment is the second notable move the firm has made in Africa's payments space in 2026 alone. In July, it backed Nigerian fintech Flutterwave as that company expanded USDC settlement across its platform. As stablecoins become a bigger part of how money moves across African borders, the question is which infrastructure players are positioned to carry that volume at scale.
Originally published by TechCabal.