-Initial $150,000 in XLM funding per startup, on-site component in SA.
San Francisco, California & Zug, Switzerland, 28 April 2026. The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), the nonprofit behind Stellar, the high-performance network for near-instant, low-cost cross-border payments and asset tokenisation, which consistently holds a top-30 position by market capitalization, has announced the Stellar x CV Labs Accelerator.
The Stellar x CV Labs Accelerator comes as the Stellar network is seeing measurable growth across both usage and institutional adoption. In 2025, real-world assets on Stellar grew by 158%, while total value locked increased by 127%. More than 800 active projects are now building across payments, savings, lending, and liquidity use cases, and the network has surpassed 10 million active accounts and more than 21.5 billion total operations.
Global financial institutions use the Stellar network as essential infrastructure. Franklin Templeton expanded its tokenized U.S. Treasury fund, now holding more than $625 million in assets, to European institutional investors on Stellar last year. PayPal launched its PYUSD stablecoin on the network, while MoneyGram rolled out a stablecoin-powered financial app built on Stellar. Companies including Visa, Mastercard, Wirex, and U.S. Bank have also integrated the Stellar network into production or pilot systems focused on payments and settlement.
The Stellar x CV Labs Accelerator program will focus on startups building across payments infrastructure, tokenized real-world assets, and decentralized finance applications: areas where institutional adoption is moving into production deployment. The 12-week program will support and scale ten early-stage startups building in, or targeting, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). With a population of more than 2 billion people and one of the fastest-growing digital regions globally, EMEA is increasingly viewed by frontier technology drivers as a strategic growth market. Stellar has strong foundations in the EMEA region, with partnerships including MoneyGram, integrations with Yellowcard and Flutterwave, and investments in companies such as Invoicemate, ChipperCash, Kredete, OkHi and Cedar.
Startups selected for the accelerator will receive hands-on technical support, tokenomics guidance, go-to-market development, and access to structured funding pathways. Each team can secure up to $150,000 in XLM in initial development funding from Stellar Development Foundation.
Participants will also gain exposure to investors and financial institutions already active within the Stellar ecosystem. The program is scheduled to begin in August 2026 and will run primarily remotely, with an on-site component in Cape Town, South Africa. It will conclude with an in-person Demo Day at the Stellar Meridian conference, taking place October 2026 in Lisbon, Portugal.
“When it comes to using blockchain in real-world financial applications, the EMEA region is one of the most dynamic globally,” said José Fernández da Ponte, President and Chief Growth Officer at the Stellar Development Foundation. “Through this accelerator with CV Labs, we want to support founders in the region building scalable financial infrastructure that can operate across borders while advancing our broader mission of improving access to the global financial system.”
The accelerator will be run by CV Labs, the ecosystem arm of blockchain venture capital firm CV VC, which operates innovation hubs across Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Portugal, South Africa, and the UAE.
“Our experience is built on a long track record of accelerating blockchain startups, many of which are now part of our venture portfolio through CV VC. Our acceleration-as-a-service model has already helped other leading blockchain ecosystems. With Stellar, we are now bringing that track record to one of the fastest-growing digital regions in the world,” said Olaf Hannemann, Co-Founder at CV VC.
More broadly, the launch highlights a shift in strategy across major blockchain networks. Rather than focusing solely on developer adoption in traditional markets, networks are increasingly investing in regions where digital payments, tokenization, and cross-border financial services are already seeing strong real-world demand.
Applications for the program are now open here.
