South African travel-focused fintech TurnStay has raised US$2 million in seed funding to accelerate its expansion across African markets and scale its payment infrastructure for tour operators.
The funding follows a US$300 000 pre-seed round in July 2024.
Founded by fintech veterans, CEO Alon Stern and COO James Hedley, TurnStay uses a merchant-of-record and stablecoin-enabled model to reduce international payment failures, high transaction costs and settlement delays.
The platform integrates with existing booking engines and property management systems, and enables local travel operators to lower payment fees by up to 70%, according to TurnStay. This enables local tourism businesses to compete with global OTAs that typically charge high commissions and control cash flows.
The company plans to use the funding to grow its client base in key tourism markets across Africa and enhance its cross-border payments offering.
“This seed funding represents a major milestone in our mission to make global payment infrastructure accessible to African travel businesses. Since our pre-seed round last year, we’ve processed over R250 million (US$14 million) in transactions and secured partnerships with industry leaders,” said Stern.
