Nigerian payments company, Flutterwave, on Wednesday announced that it has secured $250 million in Series D funding, shooting its valuation beyond the $3 billion mark, a milestone conferring on the fintech firm the prestige of being Africa’s most valuable startup.
Founded in 2016 by Olugbenga Agboola, and Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and headquartered in San Francisco, United States, Flutterwave provides wide-ranging services from card issuing and management to flexible loans.
It aims to facilitate and leverage the booming African payments market driven by increased mobile phone use and faster internet speeds.
The latest fundraising round was led by US-based B Capital Group, with participation from Alta Park Capital and Whale Rock Capital. Salesforce Ventures, Tiger Global, Green Visor Capital and Glynn Capital, all existing investors, also participated.
The company had in March last year announced it raised $170 million in a Series C round led by Tiger Global and Avenir, putting its valuation at $1 billion.
The new deal, the start-up said, will help boost customer acquisition in existing markets and deepen growth through mergers and acquisitions as well as facilitate product development.
Flutterwave has processed more than 200 million transactions estimated at over $16 billion since inception and served more than 900,000 businesses across the world.
“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,” Mr Agboola said in a website statement.
“We set out to build a platform that simplifies payments for everyone and today, our solutions are used across the globe to connect Africans to the world and the world to Africans.
“We are delighted that investors believe in us and our story and are committing their resources to this belief.
Matt Levinson, Partner at B Capital said, “At B Capital, we seek to back generational companies with broad platform potential. “
He 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.
David Glynn, Managing Partner of Glynn Capital added, “We believe the digitization of payments globally is one of the largest and most important trends in technology.
“Having been investors in Flutterwave since 2017, we have had a front-row seat in seeing Flutterwave establish itself as a leading payments company in Africa as it drives adoption of seamless digital payments experiences for merchants and consumers alike.”
