The messenger built for African networks. HD voice notes that don't eat your data. Calls that survive 2G. End-to-end encrypted. Made by Africans, for Africans.
Familiar layout. Voice-first by default. End-to-end encrypted, every time.
↑ Familiar layout, voice-first underneath. Tap "Continue as Charles Mensah — Founder #1" to explore.
WAYA AI is built from the ground up for African languages and African voices. Speak Twi to a friend who only reads English. Get long voice notes summarised. Search your voice history. The first messenger that actually gets the way Africa talks.
Send a voice note in Twi. Friend reads it in English. Reply in Yoruba. They read it in French. Cross-language conversations, finally.
Q3 2026Every voice note transcribed to text on-device. Read it in church, in meetings, in silence. Search your voice history like email.
With MVPFive-minute auntie voice note? Get a one-sentence summary first. "Aunt says she's coming Sunday with food." Decide if you need to listen.
Q4 2026Recording at the market? In traffic? At a church service? AI strips the noise. Crystal-clear voice, regardless of where you are.
With MVPOne prompt on first launch: "Connect your socials?" Tap yes. WAYA links your Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook, LinkedIn — securely via OAuth. Then:
Languages on the roadmap: Twi · Ga · Ewe · Hausa · Yoruba · Igbo · Swahili · Zulu · Wolof · Amharic · Pidgin English
Africa's networks drop. Constantly. WAYA is the only messenger built around that reality — not in spite of it. Two ways your messages still reach the people you love when everyone else's app is just spinning.
Text, voice notes, photos, short videos — record or send anything on zero bars. WAYA holds it on your phone. The second you walk into signal, it ships everything in order. You'll never lose a message again.
SHIPS WITH MVPIf WAYA can't reach the internet at all, your text goes through as a regular SMS via your SIM. Works on 2G. Works in the village. Works during a power-cut. Works when nothing else does.
SHIPS WITH MVPAfrica's reality: light off, tower goes down. WAYA's voice notes are tiny (60 KB / 30 sec — 8× smaller than WhatsApp), so even on phone-battery-only mode you can still send for hours. Your phone outlasts the grid.
SHIPS WITH MVPImages compressed on-device to WebP (~30 KB each). Videos capped at 10 sec, low-bitrate H.264 (~500 KB). Small enough that even your auntie's phone can send a kente photo on a flaky network.
SHIPS WITH MVPTiny files. ~60 KB per 30 seconds. 8× less data than WhatsApp. Your bundle thanks you.
Adaptive Opus codec, intelligent reconnect. WAYA calls keep going when other apps drop.
Signal protocol. We cannot read your messages. We cannot hear your calls. Ever. By design.
Voice notes queue locally and auto-send when signal returns. SMS fallback for the most basic phones. See how →
One toggle: auto-download off, compressed previews, audio-only calls. Your data plan, your control.
Voice notes, photos, and the joke that started it all. Family WhatsApp without the data drain.
Built for Africa first, ready for the world. Designed for unreliable networks, not unlimited fibre.
I'm Charles Mensah. I'm from Accra. Every time I send a voice note to my mum, I watch my data tick down in real time. That math should not be hard in 2026.
"WhatsApp won the world. They didn't win Africa specifically — they're just what we ended up with because nothing else worked here either. That changes today."
— Charles Mensah, Founder · 🇬🇭
Join the wait list. Refer friends to climb the queue. The first 10,000 get a Founding Member badge + WAYA Plus free for a year.