By Adedapo Adesanya
African fintech, Flutterwave, has raised $250 million in a Series D round that tripled the company’s valuation to over $3 billion.
With the new round, Flutterwave is currently the highest valued African startup, indicating that it has surpassed the $2 billion valuation set by SoftBank-backed fintech OPay and FTX-backed cross-border payments platform Chipper Cash last year.
Led by B Capital Group, the $250 million Series D round also features Alta Park Capital, Whale Rock Capital and Lux Capital, as well as existing investors such as Glynn Capital, Avenir Growth, Tiger Global, Green Visor Capital and Salesforce Ventures.
The new funds will drive Flutterwave’s ambitious expansion plan to accelerate customer acquisition in existing markets and growth through mergers and acquisitions and develop complementary products while encouraging new innovations in its products and services development.
The startup has processed over 200 million transactions worth over $16 billion to date and serves more than 900,000 businesses, including customers like Uber, Flywire and Booking.com.
Flutterwave has an infrastructure reach in over 34 African countries, including Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa.
Speaking on this, Mr Olugbenga Agboola, founder and CEO of Flutterwave said, “Our growth so far is due to the support of our customers, our partners, the banks, the public, the regulators, and importantly our people.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), under the leadership of Mr 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. We are grateful to them and to all the other central banks in all the countries where we operate.
“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.
“This 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.”
On his part, Mr Matt Levinson, partner at B Capital, said his firm backed generational companies with broad platform potential.
“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,” he said.
“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,” he said.
In March 2021, the San Francisco-headquartered and Lagos-based startup raised $170 million in a Series C round from Tiger Global and Avenir at a valuation of $1 billion.
Modupe Gbadeyanka