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It is now valued more than UBA, First Bank Holdings, Access Bank, Stanbic IBTC, and most banks except GTBank and Zenith Bank in Nigeria. UBA – N239 billion Access – N275.475B Stanbic – N444.240B First Bank FBH – N260.241B As it stands today, at N480/$, Flutterwave is more than all those. Except for Zenith and GTBank, FLW is ahead. (Source: Nigerian Stock Exchange). That is the most obvious way to “go digital” Moreover, the African payment company announced that it has closed $170 million in a Series C round, which brought the value of the company to over $1 billion. This was led by New York-based private investment firm Avenir Growth Capital and Tiger Global Management. New and existing investors who participated include DST Global, Early Capital Berrywood, Green Visor Capital, Greycroft Capital, Insight Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Tiger Management, Worldpay FIS and 9yards Capital. The latest funding brings the total investment in the five-year-old company to $225 million. The Series C round comes a year after Flutterwave closed its $35 million Series B and $20 million Series A in 2018. In total, Flutterwave has raised $225 million and is one of the few African startups to have secured more than $200 million in funding. Africa’s electronic payment industry—including card, e-commerce, digital banking transactions and more—has exploded in recent years, generating about $20 billion in revenue in 2019, according to McKinsey.
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Founded in 2016, Flutterwave helps businesses from around the world expand their operations in Africa and other emerging markets with a platform that enables cross-border transactions through one API. Businesses can use the platform to create customizable payment forms and collect that payment from customers and international businesses without having to sync with multiple payment systems. The San Francisco-based company already serves more than 290,000 businesses in Africa, including Uber, Facebook, and Booking.com. On the other hand, according to Tekedia, Flutterwave has closed one of the most challenging links in global digital payments for most African merchants and creators: the inability to receive payments from Paypal. Yes, you can pay but you are not allowed to receive, until now. According to the company, it has a-
“collaboration with global payment leader PayPal to enable PayPal customers globally to pay African merchants in the continent through Flutterwave’s platform. The collaboration will be instrumental in supporting SMEs and freelancers to overcome the many challenges presented by the highly fragmented and complex payment and banking infrastructure, as well as connecting them with more than 377 million PayPal account holders globally.”This is monumental as more people can reach Western Europe and American customers, out of Africa. If you are a member of Tekedia Mini-MBA and need support on integrating with Paypal and Flutterwave, we have made resources available to provide guidance. Tekedia already uses this Flutterwave technology – our support team will assist. We want you to sell globally and internationally. Featured Image Source: Forbes Africa
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