How Nigerian fintech startup, Flutterwave crossed $3bn valuation line in six years
Flutterwave has raised USD $250 million in Series D funding, raising the value of the company to over $3 billion, a representative of the company said on Tuesday.
The latest backers of the Nigerian unicorn include B Capital Group, with participation from Alta Park Capital, Whale Rock Capital, Lux Capital, among others. Several existing investors who also participated in previous rounds also followed this round, including, Glynn Capital, Avenir Growth, Tiger Global, Green Visor Capital and Salesforce Ventures.
Flutterwave raised $170 million in Series C a little under a year ago to push its valuation as of then to over $1 billion.
Launched in 2016 as a Nigerian and U.S.-based payments company with offices in Lagos and San Francisco, Flutterwave helps businesses build customisable payments applications through its APIs.
The new funds will drive Flutterwave’s ambitious expansion plan to accelerate customer acquisition in existing markets and growth and develop complementary products while encouraging new innovations in its products and services development.
“Our story is that of resilience and hard work. Our growth so far is due to the support of our customers, our partners, the banks, the public, the regulators, and importantly our people,” Flutterwave founder and CEO Olugbenga Agboola said.
The Series D fundraise comes on the back of an impressive run of five years in which Flutterwave has processed over 200M transactions worth over USD $16B to date across 34 countries in Africa. It also follows a year of rapid growth for the brand which now serves over 900,000 businesses across the globe.
He commended the Central Bank of all countries of operations, particularly “Nigeria, under the leadership of Dr Godwin Emefiele, laid the vision of a transformational Payment System in Nigeria, provided the framework for innovation in this space, and has continued to create regulations that have enabled us to grow and thrive.”
Agboola said the latest funding demonstrates the conviction of some of the world’s leading investors in both our business model, team and the Africa technology market. It gives Flutterwave the much-needed support to deliver on our plans to provide the best experience for our merchants and customers around the world.”
Matt Levinson, Partner at B Capital said Flutterwave has a unique opportunity to accomplish this as the dominant payments infrastructure provider across Africa.
“In addition to their emergence as the leading enterprise payments processor for the continent, Flutterwave is innovating at breakneck speed with novel fintech solutions for large corporates, SMEs and consumers. I’ve had the pleasure of backing this world-class team since 2017 and couldn’t be more thrilled that B Capital is leading their Series D.
“Flutterwave may ultimately build one of the most consequential fintech businesses in the world, enabling hundreds of thousands of merchants to transact online and connect Africa to the global economy.”
