When we began building PayKunda, we studied three companies that had successfully scaled payments infrastructure in emerging markets: dLocal, Thunes and Rafiki. Each took a different approach to the same fundamental challenge - moving money in markets where existing infrastructure is fragmented, unreliable, or simply does not exist. Understanding what each company built, how they positioned themselves and what they got right (and wrong) informed many of our early decisions.
This article is a publicly-sourced analysis of these three companies - drawn from public filings, investor presentations, press releases and industry coverage - and the lessons we extracted for building unified payment infrastructure focused on Africa.
dLocal: The Latin America-First Payment Gateway
Company Overview
dLocal, founded in Uruguay in 2016, provides a technology-first payment platform focused on emerging markets. The company went public on the NASDAQ in June 2021 at a valuation of approximately $6 billion, making it one of the highest-valued fintech IPOs from Latin America. As of early 2026, dLocal operates across 40+ countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
Business Model
dLocal's core value proposition is enabling global merchants to accept payments from (pay-in) and make payments to (pay-out) consumers and businesses in emerging markets through a single API. Their primary customers are large global enterprises - Netflix, Amazon, Uber, Spotify, Microsoft - that need to collect payments in local currencies from consumers in markets like Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria and India.
What dLocal Got Right
- Enterprise focus: By targeting large global merchants first, dLocal secured high-volume, sticky customers with predictable payment flows. This gave them revenue scale without needing to serve thousands of small customers.
- Pay-in + pay-out in one platform: Offering both collections (pay-in) and disbursements (pay-out) through the same integration created operational simplicity for merchants and increased wallet share.
- Regulatory licensing: dLocal invested heavily in obtaining payment licenses in each market it operates in, building a regulatory moat that is expensive and time-consuming for competitors to replicate.
- Local payment method coverage: In each market, dLocal integrates with the payment methods consumers actually use - PIX in Brazil, SPEI in Mexico, bank transfers in Nigeria - rather than assuming card payments will suffice.
Lessons for PayKunda
dLocal demonstrated that emerging market payments can support a multi-billion dollar company if you solve the right problem (connecting global enterprises to local payment methods) with the right approach (single API, local licensing, comprehensive method coverage). However, dLocal's focus is primarily on card-present/card-not-present and bank transfer payment methods for global merchants. Utility payments, airtime and mobile-money-first markets (particularly in Africa) are not their primary focus.
Thunes: The Cross-Border Payment Network
Company Overview
Thunes (formerly TransferTo) is a Singapore-headquartered cross-border payments network that connects banks, mobile wallets and payment platforms across 130+ countries. Founded in 2005, Thunes has raised over $100 million in funding and processes billions of dollars in annual transaction volume. The company positions itself as the "payments superhighway" - a network of networks that connects disparate payment systems globally.
Business Model
Thunes operates a B2B payment network. Their customers are not end consumers but rather financial institutions, remittance companies, fintechs and enterprises that need to move money across borders. Thunes provides the underlying rails - connecting the sender's payment system in one country to the recipient's payment system in another.
Key products include:
- Direct Global Network: Real-time cross-border payments to bank accounts, mobile wallets and cash pickup points in 130+ countries.
- Collections: Accept payments from customers in emerging markets.
- Disbursements: Send mass payouts to recipients across markets.
What Thunes Got Right
- Network approach: By building a network of direct connections to payment systems (rather than relying on correspondent banks), Thunes can offer faster settlement and lower costs than traditional cross-border channels.
- Mobile wallet connectivity: Thunes was early in building direct connections to mobile money networks in Africa, enabling real-time delivery to M-Pesa, MTN MoMo, Orange Money and others.
- B2B positioning: By serving other financial institutions and fintechs (rather than end consumers), Thunes avoids the cost of consumer acquisition and regulatory complexity of holding consumer funds.
- Global scale: Operating in 130+ countries creates network effects - the more destinations Thunes covers, the more valuable the platform becomes to each customer.
Lessons for PayKunda
Thunes validated that the network approach works: building direct connections to local payment systems (mobile wallets, banks, agents) rather than routing through traditional correspondent banks. Their mobile wallet connectivity in Africa demonstrated demand for real-time delivery to mobile money accounts. However, Thunes focuses primarily on cross-border money movement and does not address utility payments (electricity, water, airtime) or domestic value-added services.
Rafiki: Africa-Focused Payouts and Collections
Company Overview
Rafiki (operating as Rafiki Money or similar) represents the emerging class of Africa-focused payment infrastructure companies that provide payouts, collections and business payments across African markets. While smaller than dLocal or Thunes, companies in this category are building deep integrations specific to African payment rails - mobile money, local banks and mobile banking apps.
Business Model
Africa-focused payment platforms like Rafiki typically offer:
- Payouts: Send money to bank accounts, mobile wallets, cards and stablecoin wallets across African markets.
- Collections: Accept payments from consumers via mobile money, bank transfer, or USSD.
- Business payments: B2B transfers between businesses in different African countries.
What This Category Got Right
- Africa-first approach: By focusing exclusively on African markets, these companies build deeper integrations and better understand local nuances compared to global players covering Africa as one of many regions.
- Mobile money native: Rather than treating mobile money as an afterthought (as global players sometimes do), Africa-focused platforms treat mobile wallets as the primary payment rail.
- Local team and relationships: Having teams on the ground in African markets accelerates integration timelines and improves operational reliability.
- Compliance specialization: Understanding and navigating African regulatory environments (which vary dramatically by country) is a core competency rather than a secondary concern.
Lessons for PayKunda
Africa-focused platforms demonstrated that there is strong demand for payment APIs built specifically for African markets, with deep understanding of local payment methods. The limitation of most Africa-focused payout platforms is their scope - they handle money movement (payouts and collections) but do not address utility payments, airtime, or value-added services that represent enormous transaction volume in African markets.
Comparative Analysis
| Dimension | dLocal | Thunes | Rafiki / Africa-Focused |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary market | Latin America + emerging markets | Global (130+ countries) | Africa specifically |
| Primary customer | Global enterprise merchants | Banks, fintechs, remittance cos | Fintechs, businesses, platforms |
| Core capability | Local payment method acceptance | Cross-border payment network | Payouts + collections |
| Mobile money depth | Moderate | Strong | Very strong |
| Utility payments | No | Limited (airtime through partners) | Limited or none |
| Stablecoin settlement | No (fiat only) | No (fiat only) | Some exploration |
| Developer experience | Strong (enterprise-grade) | Strong (B2B focused) | Variable |
The Gap We Identified
Studying these three companies revealed a clear gap in the market. None of them address all of the following simultaneously:
- Deep African mobile money connectivity (direct integrations, not through intermediaries).
- Utility payment coverage (electricity, water, airtime, data, TV, internet) - which represents an enormous share of daily transaction volume in African markets.
- Stablecoin settlement option - giving businesses the choice to settle in local currency OR stablecoins (USDC/USDT) for cheaper, faster cross-border treasury management.
- Developer-first API experience - documentation, sandboxes, SDKs and developer tooling at the level that developers have come to expect.
dLocal excels at enterprise payment acceptance but does not focus on African utilities or mobile money depth. Thunes excels at cross-border payment routing but does not offer utility payments or stablecoin settlement. Africa-focused platforms understand the market deeply but typically limit their scope to money movement (payouts/collections) without utility services.
Lessons That Shaped Our Approach
From dLocal: License Early, License Often
dLocal's regulatory moat demonstrated that payment licenses in emerging markets are both a competitive advantage and a requirement for sustainable operations. We prioritized regulatory compliance from day one rather than treating it as a later-stage concern.
From Thunes: Build the Network, Not Just Integrations
Thunes showed that a network of direct connections - to mobile wallets, banks and local payment systems - creates compounding value. Each new connection makes the platform more valuable to every existing customer. We adopted this network mindset: every new utility or mobile money integration increases the value for all API users.
From Rafiki: Go Deep on Africa
Africa-focused platforms demonstrated that geographic specialization matters. Understanding NAWEC in The Gambia, ECG in Ghana and TANESCO in Tanzania at the level of meter numbers and token formats creates defensible technical depth. We chose to go deep on Africa rather than spread thin across all emerging markets simultaneously.
The Synthesis: Unified APIs + Utilities + Stablecoin Settlement
The core insight from studying all three companies is that the African market needs a platform that combines:
- Thunes' network approach to connectivity
- dLocal's enterprise-grade developer experience
- Rafiki's Africa-first market depth
- Plus: utility payment coverage and stablecoin settlement options that none of them offer
Conclusion
dLocal, Thunes and Rafiki each validated different aspects of the emerging market payments thesis. dLocal proved the economics work at enterprise scale. Thunes proved the network model creates durable competitive advantages. Africa-focused platforms proved that geographic depth beats global breadth for specific use cases.
The opportunity we see - and the reason PayKunda exists - is in combining these proven approaches with two capabilities that none of them fully address: comprehensive utility payment coverage across African markets and flexible settlement in either local currency or stablecoins. These additions transform a payment platform from a money-movement tool into a comprehensive financial infrastructure layer for the continent.
We are grateful to these companies for demonstrating what works. Now the work is to build on those lessons and extend them into the parts of the African payment landscape that remain underserved.
Sources: dLocal SEC Filings (Form 20-F), Thunes press releases and public communications, Crunchbase funding data, public investor presentations, industry analyst reports from Mondato and CGAP, GSMA State of the Industry Report 2024.