Nigerian fintech Flutterwave raises $35m Series-B round

Flutterwave, a US-based fintech startup founded by Nigerians, has raised a $35-million Series-B round led by US venture capital firms Greycroft and eVentures.

CRE Venture Capital, Visa, Green Visor Capital, Endeavor and US financial services provider FIS also participated in the round.

Flutterwave provides digital payments infrastructure and services which enable global merchants, payment service providers and pan-African banks to accept and process payments across various channels.

The startup said in a statement today that it has processed over 100 million transactions valued over $5.4-billion for companies like Uber and Booking.com.

Since launch Flutterwave has raised a total of $55.4-million in disclosed deals

Flutterwave was founded in 2016 by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and Olugbenga Agboola (pictured above), who is the startup’s CEO.

Agboola told US tech publication TechCrunch in an article today that the funding will be invested in technology and business development to grow market share in the countries it currently operates in.

The publication added that Flutterwave will also use the investment to offer more services around its products.

The startup said in its statement today that the new funding will be used to support its expansion across West and North Africa as well as drive efforts to boost market share in existing markets.

The startup has an active presence in 10 African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa.

New partnerships with FIS, Visa

On the back of the $35-million Series-B round, Flutterwave has signed agreements with Visa and FIS.

The agreement with FIS will allow the global financial technology provider to offer the Flutterwave solution as part of Worldpay from FIS payment solutions to its merchant clients in Africa.

Flutterwave is a 2016 graduate of the FIS FinTech Accelerator programme.

In addition, the startup’s new partnership with Visa aims to scale its consumer payments service, Barter, through Visa’s QR code payments, card issuance, and global payment processing channels.

This the startup said, will enable efficient service delivery to over 85 000 businesses already using Flutterwave and will rapidly grow Barter’s user base.

Flutterwave added that the partnership increases access to digital commerce for African consumers and will connect them to the rest of the world with Visa virtual card.

Agboola, commenting in the same statement, said the startup is helping businesses in Africa and globally accept payment and to scale by being the payment technology that connects Africa to the world.

“We have built a technology infrastructure that is steadily being recognised as the bridge to connect the payment system.

“We are excited to be working with our newest commercial partners, Visa and FIS, and investors to build the dominant payments platform in Africa,” he added.

$55.4m raised since launch

With its latest Flutterwave’s $35-million Series-B round, the fintech startup will have raised a total of $55.4-million in disclosed venture capital deals since it launched.

US business intelligence platform Crunchbase calculates that the startup had prior to the announcement of this latest deal raised a total of $20.4-million over nine rounds.

The startup’s other investors include Ycombinator Continuity Fund, Omidyar Network and Glynn Capital.

Last November, Flutterwave won the Changing Africa Award at the 2019 AppsAfrica Innovation Awards (see this story).

Last May, Agboola was one of six African entrepreneurs that were selected to join Endeavor –a non-profit organisation that supports high-impact entrepreneurs around the world — at its 87th International Selection Panel (ISP) in Madrid, Spain (see this story).

Read more: Here’s who won at the 2019 AppsAfrica Innovation Awards
Read more: Stop mixing up innovation-led firms with SME argues former Flutterwave CEO
Read more: US-based Nigerian fintech Flutterwave closes $10m Series-A extension round

Featured image: Flutterave co-founder and CEO Olugbenga Agboola (Flutterwave via Facebook)