Numo is a marketplace to cross-border businesses in emerging markets manage currency risk. By replacing banks with automated market makers, Numo provides accessible, low-cost FX forwards to hedge currencies like the Kenyan Shilling.

Our mission is to make global trade cheaper by lowering the cost of hedging. Today the lack of a liquid derivative markets among long tail FX has made hedging far too expensive for the majority. A part of it is due to frictions in cross border finance that stablecoins and AMMs now fix. Hence a liquid derivatives market across all currencies is finally in reach. This is our north star.

While FX forwards are the simplest way for a cross border business like an importer to protect against currency risk, they’re inaccessible to the majority of businesses that need it. Outside the G10 (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY), forwards are notoriously hard to buy at a good rate. That’s despite emerging markets needing them the most. Nigeria for example saw 40.9% depreciation of NGN against USD at the end of 2024. But since banks are the primary dealers of FX forwards, an importer will need a relationship with a large bank. Yet banks have stringent requirements ($1M+, US-based) and most don’t meet them.

Therefore, many importers go outside the banking system and navigate dubious exchange rates to find a willing counterparty. Even if they’re lucky and meet all the requirements of a bank, major institutions have little incentive to offer competitive rates as there are so few hedging tools available.

This is where automated market makers (AMMs) offer the perfect solution. AMMs price the discount factors for each currency from which a forward rate on a specific maturity can be derived. They are so effective at this, they're the primary means by which fix term, fixed rate lending markets work onchain. At Numo, we’ve repurposed these special AMMs to soley price FX forwards on tokenized foreign exchange markets. Built on top of automated market makers, Numo let’s businesses lock in an exchange by wrapping a sequence of buy and sell orders to directly mimic a forward. Thereby Numo becomes the central counterparty to every forward trade instead of a bank. Best of all, these FX forwards are entirely onchain making them deliverable and global accessible on day one.

Numo will take a spread on every FX forward bought on the platform.

Want to grow through just grant funding

Kenya

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