Pouchers Raises $500k Pre-Seed and Exits Beta in Nigeria

In Short

• Pouchers raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding led by Stack Directory LLC, with participation from angel investors.
• The Nigerian payments startup has exited beta.
• It plans to expand cross-border payments infrastructure, add more product features, and grow partnerships.

What Happened

Pouchers said it raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding and has now exited beta. The round was led by Stack Directory LLC, a Dubai-based internet investment company, with other strategic angel investors participating.

Pouchers positions itself as a stablecoin-powered payments platform for Nigerians who earn or spend money internationally. A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency designed to track the value of a fiat currency like the US dollar, so it aims to feel less volatile than tokens like Bitcoin.

The product offers a digital dollar wallet that supports receiving and holding USDT and USDC. USDT and USDC are dollar-pegged stablecoins, which means users can hold value in “digital dollars” instead of converting immediately to naira. Pouchers also offers virtual dollar cards that can be used for online spending across merchants that accept card payments.

The company said the new funding will go into expanding its cross-border payments rails, broadening its product offering, and building more partnerships. In payments, “rails” means the behind-the-scenes infrastructure that moves money from one party to another.

Why It Matters

For freelancers, remote workers, and small business owners in Nigeria, getting paid from abroad can still be slow and expensive. Bank transfers can take days, and FX conversion fees and poor exchange rates can reduce take-home income.

Stablecoin-based wallets are one way companies try to shorten settlement time and reduce friction, especially for international payouts and online spending. If Pouchers can keep onboarding simple and maintain reliable card and payout performance, the move out of beta could help it compete in Nigeria’s crowded cross-border payments and dollar wallet market.

The funding size is small, but it signals continued investor interest in stablecoin and multi-currency fintech tools built around real user pain points in Africa’s largest payments market.