Nigeria and San Francisco-based fintech startup Flutterwave is starting this year on a grand scale. The startup has raised a $35 million Series B round and also announced it has processed $5.4 billion dollars for businesses and individuals and new partnership with Worldpay FIS for payments in Africa.

‘‘With this capital from our investors, we will be able to continue to provide innovative solutions…to make and receive payments seamlessly. As always, our goal remains the same, we want to continue to connect Africa to the rest of the world by making sending and receiving payments as frictionless as possible for banks, businesses and individuals,’’ Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, Flutterwave Cofounder and CEO said. 

Here Is All The Deal

• This Series B round of investment was led by the US VC firms Greycroft and eVentures led the round, with participation of Visa, Green Visor, Endeavor and African fund CRE Venture Capital. WorldPay FIS also backed Flutterwave’s $35 million Series B.
• Flutterwave is also partnering with Worldpay in Africa, thereby making Flutterwave, WorldPay’s payment provider in Africa.
• With the funding, Flutterwave will invest in technology and business development to grow market share in existing operating countries, CEO Olugbenga Agboola. 
• The company will also expand capabilities to offer more services around its payment products.
• Flutterwave’s latest funding brings the company’s total investment to $55 million and follows a year in which the fintech venture announced a series of weighty partnerships.
• As a sector, fintech gains the bulk of dealflow and the majority of startup capital flowing to African startups annually. VC to Africa totaled $1.35 billion in 2019, according to WeeTracker’s latest stats.
• In July 2019, the startup joined forces with Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba’s Alipay to offer digital payments between Africa and China.
• The Alipay collaboration followed one between Flutterwave and Visa to launch a consumer payment product for Africa, called GetBarter.

Why The Investors Invested

• A key take-away from this latest investment is that Greycroft Partners, the lead investor in this round is further affirming its confidence in the Nigerian startup. The VC led its first investment in the startup in 2017 when it invested over USD10 million in the startup. 

“Greycroft is scouring the world for exciting SAAS companies, and FlutterWave is one of the fastest growing software companies we have seen,” says Ian Sigalow at Greycroft Partners on the occasion of Flutterwave’s fundraising in 2017. “Flutterwave built a lightweight, developer-friendly tool that provides key elements of a modern banking core, and they have quickly displaced legacy solutions across Africa. In Nigeria alone they are already processing a few percent of GDP from a cold start at the beginning of last year.”

• The new round makes Flutterwave the payment provider for Worldpay in Africa.

“With this partnership, any Worldpay merchant in Europe or the U.S. can accept any African payment. If someone goes to pay Netflix with an African card, it just works,” Olugbenga Agboola said.

• In 2019, Worldpay was acquired for a reported $35 billion by FIS, a U.S. financial services provider. At the time of the purchase, it was projected the two companies would generate revenues of $12 billion annually, yet neither has notable presence in Africa.

What Flutterwave Does

• Launched in 2016, Flutterwave allows clients to tap its APIs and work with Flutterwave developers to customize payments applications. Existing customers include Uber, Booking.com and e-commerce company Jumia.
• In 2019, Flutterwave processed 107 million transactions worth $5.4 billion, according to company data.
• Flutterwave did the payment integration for U.S. pop-star Cardi B’s 2019 performances in Nigeria and Ghana. Those are two of the countries in which the startup operates, in addition to South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, the U.K. and Rwanda.
• Flutterwave’s platform has served the increased B2B business payment needs spurred by the decade of growth and reform that has occurred in Africa’s core economies.

With This Round Of Financing Flutterwave Is Further Diversifying 

• This means Flutterwave will provide more solutions around the broader needs of its clients.
• The Nigerian-founded startup’s main business is providing B2B payments services for companies operating in Africa to pay other companies on the continent and abroad.

“Our business goes beyond payments. People don’t want to just make payments, they want to do something,” he said. 

“We don’t just want to be a payment technology company, we have sector expertise around education, travel, gaming, e-commerce, fintech companies. They all use our expertise,”

“If you are a charity that wants to raise money for cancer research in Ghana, or you want to sell online, or you’re Cardi B…who wants to do concerts in Africa…we want to be able to set up payments, write the code and create the platform for those needs,” he added.

• To that effect, Agboola said the company will hire more business development staff and expand its developer team to create more sector expertise, according to Agboola. 
• That also means Flutterwave, which built its early client base across global companies, aims to serve smaller African businesses, including startups. Current customers include African-founded tech companies, such as moto ride-hail venture Max.ng.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer.
He could be contacted at udohrapulu@gmail.com