Canonical: https://builtonarc.app/guides/circle-arc-grant-recipients-2026 # Circle's Arc grant recipients, confirmed Updated 2026-09-02. The Circle Developer Grants recipients on Arc that reporting confirms, with every metric attributed to its source — Circle publishes no official list. > Circle has not published a list of who received its 2026 Developer Grants. What exists instead is reporting — chiefly from BitKE, which named 19 startups with 8 Africa-founded in its Cohort 1 coverage, while other outlets report a cohort of 13. Those figures conflict, and no Circle-published cohort list resolves them. What follows are the eight recipients that reporting across multiple sources agrees on by name, with every performance metric attributed to the source that reported it — none of these numbers is Circle-confirmed. ## The cohort-size conflict, stated plainly BitKE's coverage of Circle's 2026 Developer Grants Cohort 1 reports 19 startups selected, 8 of them Africa-founded. Separate coverage — including reporting picked up by PANews — describes a cohort of 13 project teams. Circle itself has not published an official cohort list or a headline cohort number as of 2 September 2026. Built on Arc is not resolving this discrepancy by picking a number; both figures are reported, neither is Circle-confirmed, and readers should treat any single number attached to "Circle's 2026 grant cohort" as unconfirmed until Circle publishes its own list. What multiple sources agree on, independent of the total-cohort-size question, is the identity of eight specific recipients. Those eight are covered below. ## The eight confirmed-by-reporting recipients **[Blockradar](/project/blockradar)** (@BlockradarHQ) — wallet-as-a-service infrastructure aimed at fintechs, offering non-custodial wallet creation, gasless transactions, automated treasury management, and multi-chain stablecoin support. Blockradar's own site states its team includes people from Coinbase, Uber, PayPal, and Nestcoin. Reported figures vary by source: Built on Arc's fact pack cites over $950 million processed across 182,000 wallets; a separate ecosystem summary reports over $600 million processed across Africa and Latin America. Both figures are reported, not Circle-confirmed, and the variance itself illustrates why every number in this list carries a "reported" qualifier rather than being stated as fact. > **Builds on Arc:** Wallet-as-a-service infra fintechs embed to offer non-custodial, gasless wallets, built toward Arc. · **Role:** Serves · **Category:** Wallets & Custody → Embedded wallets · [Project page](/project/blockradar) **Hurupay, now [Kolan](/project/kolan)** (@kolan_xyz) — dollar-denominated accounts with routing numbers for non-US users, converting to USDC. Reported to operate across 50-plus countries; user figures reported range from roughly 50,000 to over $100 million processed depending on source and date. Kolan has rebranded from its original Hurupay name during the period covered by this reporting. > **Builds on Arc:** Issues dollar-denominated accounts with US routing numbers that convert deposits to USDC for non-US users. · **Role:** Integrates · **Category:** Payments & Payouts · [Project page](/project/kolan) **[Myaza](/project/myaza)** (@myazahq) — a pan-African payment network offering multi-currency wallets across 21 African currencies. Reported figures include 25,000-plus registered users and $15 million in cumulative volume tied to its grant-era product; Myaza's own current business site separately states a broader figure of $1.4 billion processed and 3,400-plus businesses served across 20-plus markets, reflecting the company's full commercial scale rather than Arc-specific activity — the two figures measure different things and should not be conflated. > **Builds on Arc:** Runs a pan-African payment network offering multi-currency wallets across 21 currencies, building toward Arc. · **Role:** Integrates · **Category:** Payments & Payouts · [Project page](/project/myaza) **[Payrit](/project/payrit)** (@payritHQ) — a cross-border mobile USDC wallet letting users operate in local currency. Reported figures: over 36,000 transactions worth $1.9 million for Nigerian users. > **Builds on Arc:** Cross-border mobile USDC wallet letting users send and hold value in their own local currency. · **Role:** Integrates · **Category:** Payments & Payouts · [Project page](/project/payrit) **[Flezpay](/project/flezpay)** (@flezpay) — reported in Arc grant-cohort coverage as an AI-driven smart-QR retail payments tool adjusting prices in real time, with 1,613 integrated retail stores and $31,000 in reported monthly recurring revenue. Flezpay's current public-facing site describes a broader business-management platform (point of sale, inventory, payroll, and AI tools) without foregrounding the smart-QR or Arc angle directly — consistent with a company whose core commercial product has evolved since its grant-era description. > **Builds on Arc:** AI-driven smart-QR retail payments tool for merchants, adjusting prices in real time. · **Role:** Integrates · **Category:** Payments & Payouts · [Project page](/project/flezpay) **[SFx Money](/project/sfx-money)** (@usesfxmoneyapp) — a stablecoin digital bank enabling transfers between Turkey, 16-plus African countries, the US, UK, and EU. Reported growth from 300 users in December 2024 to 8,800 by July 2026. > **Builds on Arc:** Stablecoin digital bank moving money between Turkey, Africa, the US, UK and EU. · **Role:** Integrates · **Category:** Payments & Payouts · [Project page](/project/sfx-money) **Arrel Technology, also known as DAPL** (@ArrelTechnology) — a USDC Omni-Checkout and Treasury Router product for merchants accepting USDC and EURC. Reported annual payment volume of $180 million. > **Builds on Arc:** USDC and EURC checkout and treasury-routing tool for merchants accepting stablecoin payments. · **Role:** Integrates · **Category:** Payments & Payouts **ViFi Labs** (@ViFi_Labs) — a decentralized FX protocol for emerging-market currency pairs using an AMM architecture, reported as deployed on Arc's public testnet specifically, distinguishing it from the more general "building toward Arc" framing that applies to several other recipients. > **Builds on Arc:** Decentralized FX protocol for emerging-market currency pairs, deployed on Arc's public testnet. · **Role:** Deploys · **Category:** Exchanges & Trading → FX ## What these eight have in common All eight are real, operating businesses with public products, teams, and (in most cases) years of operating history predating any Arc grant. Six — Blockradar, Kolan, Myaza, Payrit, SFx Money, and Flezpay — are concentrated in African payment corridors; that story is covered in [Who is building on Arc from Africa](/guides/who-is-building-on-arc-from-africa). Arrel Technology and ViFi Labs sit outside that corridor focus, on merchant checkout infrastructure and emerging-market FX respectively. ## How the grant's own priority areas map onto this cohort Circle's Developer Grants program names six priority use cases: agentic economic activity, stablecoin FX, peer-to-peer payments, treasury management, prediction markets, and lending and borrowing. Most of the eight map cleanly onto peer-to-peer payments and treasury management — Blockradar's treasury tooling, Payrit's and Kolan's cross-border wallets, and Arrel Technology's merchant treasury router all sit there directly. ViFi Labs, with its decentralized FX protocol, is the clearest fit for stablecoin FX. None of the eight is positioned in prediction markets, and only ViFi Labs touches lending and borrowing. That's a useful check on the cohort: the confirmed recipients skew toward real-world payments rails rather than the more speculative or DeFi-native categories Circle also prioritizes, consistent with the corridor-payments story covered in [Who is building on Arc from Africa](/guides/who-is-building-on-arc-from-africa). ## Why every number here says "reported" None of the metrics above come from a Circle-audited or Circle-published source. They come from the companies' own social accounts, from press coverage, or from ecosystem-summary articles citing those same sources. That doesn't make them false — several are corroborated across more than one outlet — but it means they haven't passed through third-party audit. We report figures the way the sources reported them: as claims, attributed, dated where a date exists. Sources: - [LIST | Out of 19 Startups Selected for Cohort 1 Circle 2026 Developer Grants Program, 8 Are Africa-Founded – BitKE](https://bitcoinke.io/2026/03/circle-unveils-cohort-1-2026-developer-grants/) - [Overview of Arc Ecosystem Projects Under Circle](https://www.weex.com/news/detail/overview-of-arc-ecosystem-projects-under-circle-hohy6g9r0turnf6qatn2kjia) - [Circle has announced its latest list of grant recipients, with 13 project teams selected](https://panews.io/articles/c9c4d399-e57f-4de8-9a86-8e4b45338f03) - [Blockradar](https://www.blockradar.co/) - [Myaza](https://www.myaza.co/business) - [FlezPay](https://flezpay.com/) ## Questions **How many companies are in Circle's 2026 Developer Grants cohort?** Reports conflict. BitKE reports 19 with 8 Africa-founded; other coverage reports 13. Circle has not published an official cohort list or number. **Has Circle confirmed any of the recipients itself?** Circle has not published a recipient list. The eight companies covered here are confirmed by reporting and by the companies' own public statements, not by a Circle-published source. **Are all the grant recipients African?** No. Six of the eight most consistently reported recipients are concentrated in African payment corridors, but ViFi Labs and Arrel Technology are not corridor-specific in the same way, and the broader cohort (19 or 13, depending on source) reportedly includes non-African teams not named consistently enough across sources for Built on Arc to list here. **Can I trust the revenue and user figures reported for these companies?** Treat them as reported claims, not audited facts. Built on Arc attributes every figure to its source rather than restating it as established. **Is receiving a Circle grant the same as being live on Arc mainnet?** No. Grant funding and Arc mainnet status are independent facts. See What's actually live on Arc mainnet for the network's own status. **Where can I read about the application process itself?** See How Circle's Developer Grants program works for the mechanics, focus areas, and how to apply.