Kredete Acquires Gravv to Power Real-Time Stablecoin Payments

What to know

• Kredete acquired Gravv to bring global stablecoin settlement, multi-currency accounts, and local payout rails in-house.
• Gravv’s agentic layer enables software programs and AI agents to autonomously negotiate, route, and settle cross-border financial transactions in real time.
• The deal mirrors a broader continent-wide shift toward institutional B2B stablecoin infrastructure, alongside similar agentic moves by players like Kenya’s Pretium.

Kredete, a financial technology platform serving users across Africa, the diaspora, and other emerging markets, announced on September 21 that it has acquired Gravv.

Kredete’s acquisition of Gravv, an “agentic” stablecoin infrastructure platform, advances its goal of creating autonomous middleware that enables real-time global money transfers in emerging markets.

Ebuka Arinze, Kredete’s Chief Product Officer, said, “Having already powered millions of transactions for individuals and businesses, we are now building the financial infrastructure agents will need to participate in the global economy.”

What Gravv Does and Why Kredete Wanted It

Gravv’s core job is collapsing a normally fragmented process, which includes FX conversion, card issuance, stablecoin settlement, and off-ramping into a single integration.

Its “agentic” layer is the part doing the coordination. Gravv enables AI agents and software programs to autonomously negotiate, execute, and settle on-chain financial transactions in real time.

Gravv provides banks, fintechs, and treasury teams with a single integration handling multi-currency accounts, forex, liquidity, and stablecoin settlement across both traditional and blockchain rails.

“Global payments are not one rail,” Hakeem Oriola, Chief Technology Officer at Kredete, said, “they are a coordination problem across banks, blockchains, liquidity, compliance, and local payout systems. Gravv brings those rails into one infrastructure layer, and its agentic capabilities help Kredete route, settle, and reconcile payments in real time.”

Before the acquisition, Gravv processed over $3 billion in annualised volume for more than 1,000 businesses globally.

Kredete, founded in 2022, already serves diaspora and emerging-market users directly. Kredete not only allows users to send money to over 60 countries, but also builds users’ credit scores as they transact.

The company says it has processed over $18 billion in annualised payments volume for more than 6.5 million users, and $24.75 million in total funding raised.

Buying Gravv brings the infrastructure layer underneath that consumer business in-house, rather than relying on third-party rails, and lets Kredete offer the same infrastructure to other banks, fintechs, and developers building in emerging markets.

Kredete’s founder and CEO Adeola Adedewe said, “Infrastructure is the moat, and intelligence is the operating layer.” 

He also noted that Kredete’s acquisition of Gravv gives it “stablecoin infrastructure and global rails” that can sit beneath its “consumer and enterprise pro.” At the same time, its agentic layer “helps operate those rails in real time.”

Part of a Bigger Pattern

Kredete’s framing that the “next trillion dollars in commerce will be initiated and processed by AI agents” isn’t an isolated bet.

Nairobi-based Pretium has built a comparable agentic stablecoin payments layer, which lets AI agents autonomously send money and settle bills across African payment rails via USDT and USDC.

African stablecoin payment volumes are projected to grow by 65% to 80% in 2026, with capital shifting aggressively from retail crypto trading toward B2B treasury and settlement platforms.

Kredete’s move comes amid a wave of partnerships aimed at developing stablecoin infrastructure across the continent.  

Onafriq recently partnered with Privy to build stablecoin infrastructure across the continent. Stabyl raised roughly $2.7 million in pre-seed funding to build a stablecoin-powered liquidity platform for institutional clients.

Across the continent, stablecoins are evolving into financial and technological plumbing connecting banks, blockchains, and local payment systems.