Cloud9 raises US$500,000 from Alliance to expand cross-border payments
The New York accelerator's cheque is part of Cloud9's pre-seed round and takes its disclosed funding to US$1 million. Founded in late 2025 by Tesh Mbaabu and Mesongo Sibuti — both co-founders of the collapsed e-commerce startup Marketforce — it launched in early 2026 as a digital bank for people and businesses that transact across currencies and borders. Users can hold shillings, dollars, euros, pounds and yuan; businesses can pay suppliers in more than 100 countries, receive payments into dedicated virtual accounts and run payroll, bulk payments and team approvals; and Cloud9 Wealth offers savings products and global stocks. Cross-border transfers settle in USDC and USDT stablecoins, which is how it avoids needing banking relationships in each country. Cloud9 claims more than 25,000 accounts since going live and weekly transaction growth above 15%. The money goes to new corridors, the platform, virtual and physical cards, and customer acquisition. It also incorporated social-commerce platform Chpter in August and earlier bought ticketing company M-Tickets for about KSh100 million.
Source: The Kenyan Wall Street
