World globe

US $1 Billion Valuation
Raised $225 million
300 staff
Live in 20 African countries
Infrastructure reach to 33 countries
Processed 140 million transactions worth US $9 billion
290,000 business users
500,000 users of its Barter product in 5 years.

Nigerian fintech company Flutterwave has announced a $170 million funding round at a pre-money valuation of over $1 billion, making it the newest member of the African unicorn club. The round was led by New York-based private investment firm Avenir Growth Capital and US hedge fund and investment firm Tiger Global.

DST Global, Early Capital Berrywood, Green Visor Capital, Greycroft Capital, Insight Ventures, PayPal, Salesforce Ventures, Tiger Management, WorldpayFIS 9yards Capital are among the new and existing investors that participated in the round.

This is set to be Flutterwave's final investment round before going public on Nasdaq. The company said that the new funding would fuel its global expansion into new market segments and regions, increase investment in product innovation, rapidly accelerate hiring and support M&A activities to further anticipate the needs of a rapidly changing market.

The Series C round comes a year after Flutterwave closed its $35 million Series B and $20 million Series A in 2018. In total, the payment startup has raised $225 million and is one of the few African startups to have secured more than $200 million in funding.

Launched in 2016, Flutterwave is a payment solutions technology firm that has developed a payments infrastructure to make it easier for businesses and individuals to make and receive digital payments across the world. The company, which is live in 20 African countries with an infrastructure reach in over 33 countries on the continent, has processed 100 million transactions worth $9 billion for businesses such as Uber, Facebook, TransferWise, Booking.com, and Flywire.

Flutterwave joins the ranks of Africa’s unicorn startups, Jumia and Interswitch, both valued at over a billion dollars with its latest valuation.

“Since the pandemic, we’ve witnessed a seismic shift in the way people are relying on digital payments -- growth is accelerating, and Flutterwave is at the heart of it,” CEO Agboola told Techcrunch.

“The company grew more than 100% in revenue within the past year, and its compound annual growth rate (CAGR) grew by 226% from 2018,” he adds.

Agboola gives credit to the company’s more than 300 staff, investors, customers and regulatory bodies like the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for creating the backbone for Flutterwave’s success.

He adds to the statement by saying that under the current CBN governor’s administration, the Central Bank has shown a consistent regulatory framework that has allowed fintechs like Flutterwave to thrive.

“Flutterwave, for instance, launched when the governor just came in. We got our license and scaled our business because of a favourable regime that allowed it to be possible. There are so many trailblazing innovations that we don’t talk about a lot about Nigeria, like the BVN and the NIP system. Nigeria has consistently been at the forefront of payments innovation for over a decade, and it was all possible because of the forward-looking CBN policies,” he said.