Nigerian payments startup Flutterwave has closed a US$35 million Series B funding round from a consortium of strategic investors to support its expansion into new African markets.
Launched in 2016, Flutterwave builds modern payments technology and infrastructure for Africa to enable people and businesses to connect with the global economy. Its solution enables banks and merchants to replace multiple payment integrations with one simple API, which enables processing of any form of payment anywhere in Africa.
The startup is already well-backed, raising US$10 million in Series A funding in August 2017 and then an extension round in 2018, and it has now secured a US$35 million Series B co-led by Greycroft and eVentures with additional participation from CRE Venture Capital, FIS, Visa, Endeavor, and Green Visor.
Flutterwave, which already has an active presence in 10 African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa, and has so far processed 100 million transactions valued at over US$5.4 billion for global leaders including Uber and Booking.com, will use the funding to expand across Francophone and North Africa, with new target markets including Morocco, Egypt, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Malawi, and Zambia.
“We’re helping businesses in Africa and globally accept payment and to scale by being the payment technology that connects Africa to the world,” said Flutterwave founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Olugbenga Agboola.
“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.”
On the back of the latest round of funding, Flutterwave has signed commercial 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.
Additionally, the company’s partnership with Visa aims to scale its consumer payments service, Barter, through Visa’s QR code payments, card issuance, and global payment processing channels – enabling efficient service delivery to over 85,000 businesses already using Flutterwave and rapidly growing Barter’s base users. The partnership increases access to digital commerce for African consumers and connects them to the rest of the world with Visa virtual card.
“Commerce across the African continent is quickly moving online. Flutterwave is powering this transition by introducing modern payment infrastructure to Africa’s merchants while also creating the ability for global companies to reach over 1 billion African customers,” said Will Szczerbiak, principle at Greycroft.
“We have supported the company since investing in their 2016 seed and are excited to lead the Series B after seeing over 500 per cent revenue growth in 2019.”