The African tech startup ecosystem has continued to grow at an exponential rate showing great potential for many investors across the world. In 2020 a total of $757.29 million was raised with Fintech startups taking the lead like Flutterwave. Flutterwave valued at $1 billion after it announced that it has just closed a $170 million Series C round.
The mobile payments company based in San Francisco and Lagos has closed a $170 million Series C round hence Flutterwave valued at $1 billion today making it a Unicorn company. The round was led by new and existing investors like US hedge fund and investment firm Tiger Global, Avenir Growth Capital, DST Global, Green Visor Capital, Early Capital Berrywood, Greycroft Capital, Insight Ventures, PayPal, Salesforce Ventures, Tiger Management, and Worldpay FIS 9yards Capital.
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Flutterwave valued at $1 billion with groundbreaking growth in less than 4 years
The Lagos-based company, Flutterwave valued at $1 billion has made impressive growth in less than 4 years. Apart from being one of the few African startups that have secured more than $200 million in funding, it is supported in 20 African countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Tanzania with infrastructure reach in 33 countries on the continent. It has processed 140 million transactions worth $ 9billion and has 290,000 business users who use the platform to carry out payments.
The Country Lead at Flutterwave Nielsimms Sangho said, “There is no company that has gone out to build a single API that can accept all payment methods across Africa which made many companies jump on board. We have been able to scale to over 20 countries across Africa in a space of only 4 years.” attributing the company’s growth to its business module.
Flutterwave valued at $1 billion today has the vision to make it easier for Africans to build global businesses that can make and accept any payment, anywhere from across Africa and around the world and this has been the company’s driving force that has gotten it this far.
The company employs 300 staff and has attributed its success to an amazing team that has contributed to Flutterwave valued at $1 billion milestone. “We have the best teams, the best developers in all our departments”, Mr Sangho explained.
“There was a need for an API that could accept all payment methods across different countries. The API became the infrastructure upon which many businesses built their business and have now managed to power so many of the popular companies across Africa and across the world.”
The pandemic saw many businesses shutting down for the first time after years of great success. But the pandemic was especially hard on startups that struggled to stay afloat financially. For Flutterwave, this opened even more opportunities for the mobile payments company enabling it to thrive and manage the difficult time.
“One of the things that we were believing in even before COVID was that this was the future, the future was going to be online people were going to be making payments online and no need to move. When COVID happened for us it was an accelerator. But because of what became a big business in e-commerce and online payments and bills and utilities, this instead propelled us and even in COVID, we ended up growing month on month instead of becoming small and winding down our business. It was two-sided, bad for some of our merchants but on the other hand, it was big for us because this is the future we always predicted.” the Flutterwave Country Lead said.
About Flutterwave.
Flutterwave was founded in 2016 by a team of ex-bankers, entrepreneurs and engineers. It provides the award-winning technology core needed to provide businesses all around the world a powerful, reliable and intelligent payments gateway. Flutterwave is an API that lets you process credit card and local alternative payments, like mobile money and ACH, across Africa. They make it possible for global merchants to process payments like a local African company.
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