By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s leading financial technology (fintech) company, Flutterwave, has secured $170 million in Series C funding from investors.
A statement signed on Wednesday by the Head of Branding and Storytelling at Flutterwave, Ms Yewande Akomolafe-Kalu, disclosed that the round was led by growth-equity firms, Avenir Growth Capital and Tiger Global Management LLC.
Other participants (new and existing) included DST Global, Early Capital Berrywood, Green Visor Capital, Greycroft Capital, Insight Ventures, PayPal, Salesforce Ventures, Tiger Management, WorldpayFIS, and 9yards Capital.
The new funding package brings the total investment in Flutterwave to $225 million and is one of only a very small number of African fintech companies to have raised significant funds in a period of widespread disruption and economic uncertainty.
The company noted that the funds will allow it to execute an ambitious growth strategy to become a leading global payments company, empowering SMEs and multinational brands by connecting the highly fragmented African digital payments landscape.
Flutterwave added that it will invest the new capital to accelerate customer acquisition in existing and international markets, as well as develop complementary and innovative products such as the newly launched Flutterwave Mobile, an app to help accelerate eCommerce growth as a result of the success of the Flutterwave Stores.
This raise is coming at a time when COVID-19 disruptions have shifted focus to digital payments in Africa, which has contributed to Flutterwave’s exceptional revenue growth of 226 per cent CAGR within 2018-2020.
The fund has also increased the valuation of Flutterwave to $1 billion, giving the firm the opportunity to consider listing its shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
“We may consider the possibility of listing in New York or a possible dual listing in New York and Nigeria,” the founder and CEO of Flutterwave, Mr Olugbenga Agboola, informed Reuters.
On his part, Jamie Reynolds, Partner at Avenir Growth Capital, said, “Flutterwave is at the forefront of innovation in payments technology, and we are excited to support the team as they build the last available payments infrastructure frontier in the world – connecting merchants and consumers intra-Africa and globally.”
Scott Shleifer, Partner at Tiger Global Management LLC, added: “We are excited to partner with Flutterwave as they continue building a world-class payments platform. We were impressed by Flutterwave’s focus on customer success and believe the company is well-positioned for sustainable long-term growth.”
Flutterwave’s latest fundraise comes on the back of an impressive run of four years in which it reached over 290,000 merchants and over 500,000 registered Barter users, launched a range of new products and partnerships and expanded its infrastructure into over 33 countries.
The move has been tagged as a big win for the Nigerian tech ecosystem which has been projected to record massive growth this year with more series funds and possible mergers or acquisitions set to follow.
Last year, US payments company, Stripe bought Paystack for $200 million and in late 2019 Visa bought a 20 per cent stake in Interswitch, one of Nigeria’s major business-to-business transactions.
Modupe Gbadeyanka