Pan-African fintech startup, Flutterwave, has announced a $35 million series B round, and partnerships with payment processing company WorldPay and payment giant Visa as it plans to expand to Francophone and northern Africa.
Founded in 2016 by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and Olugbenga Agboola, Flutterwave allows clients to tap its API as well as facilitate payments for companies in Africa to pay companies in other continents and abroad.
I am also proud to announce that we have closed our Series B round funding led by @greycroftvc & @eventuresVC with participation from @CRE_VC, @FISGlobal, @Visa and @GreenVisorCap. You can read more on the story here – https://t.co/oChsjqPA8J
— GB 🦋 (@TechProd_Arch) January 21, 2020
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Capitalising on Africa’s growing payments market, Flutterwave will now be the payment provider for Worldpay’s clients worldwide.
Visa is another major player to buy into Flutterwave as it has done in the past with Paystack and Interswitch. As part of the series B deal, Visa’s physical and virtual cards will be expanded on Flutterwave’s network.
“We are excited to be working with our newest commercial partners, Visa and WorldPay FIS, and investors to build the dominant payments platform in Africa,” Agboola said on Visa and Worldpay’s partnership.
According to Agboola, the funding will allow Flutterwave invest in its technology and business development as well as grow market share in its existing operating countries.
In four years of operations, the fintech company claims to have processed 107 million transactions worth $5.4 billion up from 14 million transactions worth $1.5 billion it did in 2017.
Since raising its first series A of three years ago, Flutterwave has raised a total of $55 million. After raising $20 million in its first two years, the company became the most valuable African company in Y Combinator’s portfolio, with a valuation of over $150 million.
Suggested Read: Valued at over $150m, Flutterwave is Y Combinator’s most valuable company from Africa
While Visa and Worldpay participated in this series B round, VC firms eVentures and Greyrcoft led the round. Greycroft also participated and led in the previous two rounds.
With Visa now in the mix, it will be interesting to see what happens between the payment giant and its rival, Mastercard, as the latter participated in Flutterwave’s previous series A extension round of $10 million.
Other VC firms that participated include Green Visor and Africa fund CRE Venture Capital.
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Nigerian startups raised $377m in 2019, more than twice what they did in 2018. Find out more when you download the full report.
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