NALA secures up to $50M credit facility from MUFG-backed Liquidity
What's the deal? NALA, the Tanzania-founded payments infrastructure company, has secured an initial $25M credit facility from LiquidityDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, the AI-driven private credit provider, with an option to scale to at least $50M. The facility was arranged through Mars Growth CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, the joint venture between Liquidity and MUFG BankDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Japan's largest bank.
The capital will pre-fund customer accounts across NALA's stablecoin-powered payment corridors connecting the US, Europe, and emerging markets. NALA confirmed it still holds more than half of the $40M equity round it raised in mid-2024, meaning the debt facility avoids shareholder dilution.
NALA's B2B brand RafikiDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → grew from zero to $1B in transaction volume within 18 months. The platform connects to 249 banks and 26 mobile money services across 16 countries, serving enterprise clients including MoneyGramDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, TransferGo, and Cadana.
Why now? Growth outpaced NALA's balance sheet. Founder and chief executive officer Benjamin Fernandes said the company's payment volumes had begun to outstrip its ability to pre-fund transactions on both sides of a corridor.
"At some point our business was more than doubling every other quarter, we grew faster than we could handle pre-funding for single-direction payments and everything broke," Fernandes said. "Liquidity came in quickly and were highly flexible, so their tailored capital is a lifeline for us."
The broader market is moving fast too. Stablecoin B2B payment volumes have grown sixfold in 18 months, surpassing $30B monthly by early 2026, according to data from Artemis Analytics and McKinsey cited by payments firm BVNK.
What could go wrong? Debt adds financial obligations that equity doesn't. If NALA's enterprise pipeline — several contracts are scheduled to go live later in 2026 — doesn't convert into sustained high-volume flows, the company could face pressure servicing the facility.
Stablecoin regulation remains uneven across NALA's 16-country footprint, and correspondent banking incumbents could respond with faster, cheaper rails of their own.
The signal: NALA's classification as a "mature" growth-stage company on Dealroom underscores how quickly African fintech infrastructure players are evolving beyond early-stage labels — and why debt, not equity, is becoming their instrument of choice. The involvement of MUFG Bank, a corporate investor backing Mars Growth Capital, signals that traditional banking giants are actively underwriting stablecoin payment rails rather than competing against them, lending institutional legitimacy to a corridor-by-corridor disruption of correspondent banking.
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