Problem

Waza solves the cross-border payment and liquidity problem faced by businesses operating in emerging markets. These companies often have limited access to USD, EUR, and GBP, fragmented banking connections, unreliable settlement, and expensive or opaque foreign exchange. The pain is particularly acute for large enterprises and multinationals with local operations, importers and traders paying overseas suppliers, and fintechs that need dependable liquidity. Waza’s disclosed monetization—FX spread plus a 0.75%–1% take rate—also illustrates the economic value of making these flows cheaper and more reliable. The killer use case is an African importer paying suppliers in China, India, or the UK, or a multinational needing to move hard currency into its African operations.

Product / Service

Waza provides B2B global payments, foreign exchange, and treasury infrastructure through its payment platform and Lync, its multi-currency business-account product. Lync lets businesses open and manage accounts in USD, EUR, GBP, NGN, additional currencies, and stablecoins; send and receive money in more than 100 countries; and use ACH, Fedwire, SWIFT, UK Faster Payments, and other local rails. It combines payment execution with FX conversion, real-time tracking, reporting, reconciliation, invoicing, expense controls, and APIs that let fintechs embed accounts, transfers, and FX into their own products.

The benefit is a single operating layer for collections, supplier payouts, liquidity, and treasury rather than a patchwork of bank accounts and wallets. Waza positions the service around competitive FX rates, low and transparent fees, faster settlement, greater control over payment operations, and easier access to global markets; its stablecoin functionality is intended to provide additional speed and liquidity for businesses operating in volatile or underserved currency markets.

Market

Waza competes in B2B cross-border payments, emerging-market treasury and liquidity management, and embedded financial infrastructure. Its named fintech competitors include AZA Finance, Verto, and Conduit, while its differentiation is control over payment infrastructure, multi-currency accounts, and a combined payments-and-liquidity proposition for enterprises, traders, SMEs, marketplaces, fintechs, and remittance operators. Waza has described the opportunity as a roughly $7 trillion market with potential revenue of $250 billion, although that is a company-reported market ambition rather than realized revenue.

The company is not pre-revenue. Waza entered operations in January 2023 through Y Combinator’s Winter 2023 cohort, raised $8 million comprising $3 million of seed equity and $5 million of venture debt, and reported reaching profitability in the fourth quarter of 2023. Earlier disclosures reported hundreds of businesses, more than $700 million in annualized payment volume, activity across six continents, and 20% monthly growth; the current Lync site claims more than $2 billion processed, 100-plus businesses, and service across three continents. Waza is licensed as a U.S. money-service business and as an international money-transfer operator in Nigeria, giving it a regulated base from which to expand its cross-border infrastructure.