Juicyway pitches connected capital markets to finance African growth

Juicyway, a cross-border payments firm, is constructing a platform to link African assets with investors worldwide, according to its CEO, Ife Johnson. Speaking at Moonshot by TechCabal in Lagos, Johnson emphasized that faster payments are insufficient to address Africa's financing issues. He introduced plans for the 'People's Exchange', utilizing tokenisation to create blockchain-based records of assets and securities, facilitating businesses' access to capital across markets.

Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has given preliminary approval for the exchange's development.

Johnson highlighted that Juicyway has produced category leaders without establishing sufficient shared infrastructure for all categories to thrive, stating, "Africa needs more shared infrastructure and fewer isolated winners." While software can swiftly transmit payment instructions, the actual funds must be present in the appropriate currency and nation for the transaction to be completed. Around 95% of the transactions Juicyway handles require settlements.

The exchange's initial focus will be on addressing liquidity, with future applications extending to mortgages, trade receivables, energy, commodities, and private company stakes. Johnson argued that the same resource constraint affects the broader economy, as businesses possess receivables, projects demand investment, and households require long-term loans, but the necessary capital is dispersed across numerous small markets.

According to the African Development Bank's 2025 trade finance report, Africa's unmet demand for trade finance in 2024 ranged from $74 billion to $92 billion. Between 2000 and 2024, African companies raised approximately $220 billion in equity on local stock markets, accounting for only 1% of the global equity raised, as reported by the OECD's Africa Capital Markets Report 2025.

Johnson advocated for tokenising investments to structure them, record ownership, and facilitate cross-border sales, with stablecoins managing and settling the funds. He contended that Africa does not require 29 separate exchanges but rather a single market connecting them all. He emphasized that making this work necessitates more than a shared technology platform; investors must trust the underlying assets, ownership rights, and repayment or stake resale mechanisms.

Johnson framed the exchange as a long-term endeavor, citing his son: "I want his generation to inherit markets that finance their ambitions, rather than ambitions hampered by the lack of markets."