Nigerian fintech startup Flutterwave announced Wednesday that it has secured $170 million in Series C funding. The round, which now values the company at $1 billion, was led by US-based growth-equity firms Avenir Growth Capital and Tiger Global Management LLC.
This funding brings Flutterwave’s total investment since its founding in 2016 to $225 million. The company is now poised to lead the rise of digital payment processing on the continent, which was hastened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The new funds will allow Flutterwave to execute an ambitious growth strategy to become a leading global payments company,” said Flutterwave in a statement, “empowering SMEs and multinational brands by connecting the highly fragmented African digital payments landscape.”
Flutterwave helps businesses expand their operations in Africa and provides African small businesses with digital payment services. Some of the company’s big clients include Uber, Flywire, and Booking.com. It has offices in San Francisco and Lagos.
In their statement, Flutterwave said its platform has been used to process over 140 million transactions worth a total of over $9 billion across the 290,000+ businesses it serves. The company processes payments in over 150 currencies and has infrastructure in 33 African countries.
“When we started Flutterwave in 2016, the idea was to build a payments technology infrastructure that connects Africa to the global economy by making local and international payments seamless,” said Founder and CEO Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola on Twitter. “We knew this would be incredibly difficult, but we continued,” he added.
In 2020, Flutterwave launched an online store to keep SMEs in business as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The store helps business owners display and sell their products online.
“As we look to the future, our focus remains the same, which is to stand by our 290,000 merchants across Africa every day as they strive to build their mom-and-pop stores into global businesses,” said GB in Flutterwave’s official statement. “We look forward to increasing our investments across the continent and deepening the impact our platform has on lives and livelihoods as we take more businesses in Africa to the World.”
