African Fintech giant, Flutterwave, has announced that it raised a total of $35m in Series B funding from a consortium of strategic investors.
See Also: CDC Group Announces $39.2 Million Investment For SMEs In West Africa
It stated that this round of funding was co-led by Greycroft & eVentures with additional participation from CRE Venture Capital, FIS, VISA and Green Visor.
According to Szczerbiak, Principle at Greycroft, “We have supported the company since investing in 2016 and are excited to lead the Series B after seeing over 500 percent revenue growth in 2019.”
See Also: Top 10 Early Stage Investors And Venture Capitalists In Nigeria
About Flutterwave
Flutterwave transforms payment in Africa and the rest of the world. It provides the easiest and most reliable payment solutions for businesses anywhere in the world. For instance, it has processed over 100 million transactions worth over $5.4 billion globally for clients including big global companies like Uber and Booking.com.
According to the founder and CEO of Flutterwave, Olugbenga Agboola, “We’re helping businesses in Africa and globally accept payment and to scale by being the payment technology that connects Africa to the world. We have built a technology infrastructure that is steadily being recognized 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.”
Basically, the company’s core offering is providing a frictionless payment solution for merchants, banks, and consumers. They simplify how payments are made and accepted.
See Also: 15 Investing apps and websites for entrepreneurs in Nigeria
Series B Funding
The completion of the $35M series B funding will enable Flutterwave to continue to provide innovative solutions to businesses that wants to facilitate payments seamlessly.
The funding will be used to support its expansion across Francophone countries and North Africa as part of its mission to connect Africa to the world as well as drive efforts to boost market share in existing markets.
In the words of Szczerbiak, Principle at Greycroft, “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.”
See Also: Small business grants for women-owned businesses
Flutterwave Partnership
For this Series B funding, Flutterwave has signed commercial agreements with Visa and FIS.
To provide context, Flutterwave is a 2016 graduate of the FIS Fintech Accelerator Program. The agreement signed by Flutterwave will allow FIS to offer the Flutterwave solution as part of Worldpay from FIS payment solutions to its merchant clients in Africa.
Also, Flutterwave’s new partnership with Visa aims to scale its consumer payment service, Barter. This will be done through Visa’s QR code payments, card issuance and global payment processing channels. The aim is to enable efficient service delivery to over 85,000 businesses who are already using Flutterwave and help grow Barter’s base users.
Additionally, this partnership will increase access to digital commerce for African customers and connect them to the rest of the world with Visa virtual card.
Finally, Joe Saunders, a board member and former CEO of Visa have commended the effort of the entire team at Flutterwave. In his word, “GB (
Olugbenga Agboola) and his colleagues have not only identified but continue to successfully and thoughtfully execute upon, a once in a generation opportunity in commerce and payments for the emerging markets of Africa. We’re excited to continue to lend our support to this exceptional team of founders.”
This is good news for the African tech ecosystem. The issue of ease of payment has been a major challenge to doing business in Africa. When we’re properly integrated, the challenge of payment and receiving of payment will be solved for African entrepreneurs creating a change in their respective industries.
To know more about our activities, follow us on Instagram
Photo Credit: Flutterwave.com
