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TurnStay, a South African travel payments platform, processed over $62.1 million (R1 billion) in transactions in the first half of 2026, just three years after its founding.
The company plans to raise funds through a Series A investment to support its growth across Africa.
Co-founded by Alon Stern, a former head of data at Prodigy Finance with a PhD in mathematics from NYU, and James Hedley, co-founder of Quicket, which was later acquired by Ticketmaster, TurnStay builds payment infrastructure for hotels, safari lodges, tour operators, and villa agencies across Africa.
The company raised a $300k pre-Seed round in 2024 and a $2 million Seed round in 2025.
“Getting paid can be expensive in the travel industry, and for a long time African merchants have carried a much heavier cost than their overseas counterparts for doing exactly the same job. We’ve built our business around closing that gap, and the traction we are getting tells us the model works and merchants value it,” said Alon Stern, CEO and co-founder of TurnStay.
The company says traditional local payment processing for foreign travel bookings can cost African merchants as much as 8% of the transaction value. TurnStay’s clients pay as little as 1.6%, roughly half the going rate.
“The less merchants pay in fees, the more money stays in Africa,” says Stern. “That’s the philosophy behind everything we build. The experiences African travel businesses offer are already world-class. We think the payment infrastructure behind them should be too.”
The savings come from combining a merchant-of-record model with stablecoin-based cross-border payouts that move funds quickly and at low cost.
“Global platforms have used this model for years,” says Stern. “But what we’ve done is bring that same infrastructure to African travel merchants directly, so a lodge or tour operator doesn’t have to be the size of Airbnb to access it.”
TurnStay’s clients include Singita, Safari.com, Londolozi, and The Capital. The company operates as a licensed financial services provider in South Africa and is pursuing further licensing in international markets.
It is currently active in South Africa with a growing presence in Mauritius, Kenya, Tanzania, and Botswana. The platform integrates with major booking engines and property management systems, making it easy for hotels, lodges, and tour operators to adopt.
