Why we invested: HoneyCoin is Building the Bridge Between Traditional Banking and the Digital Asset World

How did TLcom first meet David and the Honeycoin Team?

We first met David Nandwa, the founder and CEO of HoneyCoin, through the Antler Kenya network in his early days as he advocated for blockchain technology in Africa. At the time, David was building HoneyCoin as an emerging crypto-enabled fintech. Even in those early days, David, already a serial entrepreneur with successful exits,  stood out with his technical brilliance and deep understanding of the impact of virtual assets on financial services, which he paired well with strong execution. 

Over time, we were impressed by the business progress. The team established trusted client partnerships with leading banks and global stablecoin issuers, serving more than 350 enterprise customers including high-growth businesses like Cedar Money, TerraPay, and Jiji and further scaled their infrastructure across more than 45 countries. In a space with competing players in the African payments and cross-border markets, HoneyCoin stood out for its technical depth, sound regulatory strategy, and operational execution.

What problem is Honeycoin solving? 

With an addressable market in FX, payments & B2B flows in Africa estimated at $3 trillion, HoneyCoin is addressing the challenges of local payment systems in many African countries, which often remain highly fragmented with high transacting costs and inefficient systems. 

Mid-to-large-sized businesses operating across multiple markets often need to connect with several providers and various payment channels, each with its own costs, licenses, and transaction restrictions. Cross-border transactions add another layer of complexity—think slow settlement times, which can traditionally take up to 7 business days, unpredictable FX conversion, capital controls, and limited USD liquidity.

HoneyCoin is simplifying this complexity through its unified platform, which allows clients to collect payments, convert currencies, and settle across borders all through one seamless integration. They leverage both fiat and stablecoin rails, enabling same-day settlement, 50%-90% cost savings and on-demand liquidity access. 

What differentiates Honeycoin from other companies? 

In a space where most players have narrow point solutions offering single products and commoditized segments of the value chain, HoneyCoin has built a complete solution that operates as a multi-product one-stop-shop infrastructure platform offering services that span local payouts and collections, cross-border FX settlement, and treasury management.

This full-stack model enables HoneyCoin to monetize multiple points in the customer journey, improve margins, and offer deeper integrations with enterprise clients. Their infrastructure-first strategy addresses critical liquidity, compliance—demonstrated by their licensing in the US, Canada, EU and key African jurisdictions—and settlement issues while rapidly expanding among major clients in fintech and e-commerce across key corridors like Nigeria–Kenya and South Africa–China. 

Their partnerships in stablecoin liquidity and banking relationships with major players like MoneyGram, UBA Bank, and Stripe position them as the interoperability layer between traditional banking and the digital asset world.

Why is TLcom excited about investing in Honeycoin?

We are excited about HoneyCoin's potential to be Africa’s leader in bridging fiat and stablecoin payments infrastructure with its multi-product and multi-market payment and fund flow infrastructure. It unifies Africa's fragmented payment rails, linking fiat and the rapidly growing stablecoin ecosystem, reaching enterprise customers and hundreds of thousands of consumers through its flagship consumer app, Peer. Their vision to be the 'operating system for money movement' in Africa, backed by a resilient team, makes us positive and expectant of this investment.