Flutterwave has closed a $35 million Series B funding from a consortium of strategic investors.
According to the company, the funding round was co-led by Greycroft & eVentures with additional participation from CRE Venture Capital, FIS, VISA, Endeavour, and Green Visor.
“We’re helping businesses in Africa and globally accept payment and to scale by being the payment technology that connects Africa to the world,” says Flutterwave founder and CEO, Olugbenga “GB” Agboola.
“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.”
The company said it will use the new funding to support its expansion across Francophone 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.
“With the latest round of funding, Flutterwave will continue to provide innovative solutions to businesses that want to facilitate payments seamlessly. The company’s core offering provides a frictionless payment solution for merchants, banks, and consumers and simplifies how payments are made and accepted.”
Will Szczerbiak, Principle at Greycroft, said, “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.
“We have supported the company since investing in their 2016 seed and are excited to lead the Series B after seeing over 500% revenue growth in 2019.”
Flutterwave has also signed commercial agreements with Visa and FIS on the back of the new funding. The agreement with FIS will allow the global financial technology provider to offer the Flutterwave solution as part of Worldpay from FIS payment solutions to its merchant clients in Africa. Flutterwave is a 2016 graduate of the FIS FinTech Accelerator program.
Additionally, the company’s new partnership with Visa aims to scale its consumer payments service, Barter, through Visa’s QR code payments, card issuance, and global payment processing channels - enabling efficient service delivery to over 85,000 businesses already using Flutterwave and rapidly growing Barter’s base users. The partnership increases access to digital commerce for African consumers and connects them to the rest of the world with Visa virtual card.
“GB 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,” says Joe Saunders, a member of the Company’s board and the former CEO of Visa.
“We’re excited to continue to lend our support to this exceptional team of founders.”
The San Francisco-based payments tech company has offices in Nairobi, Accra, and Johannesburg with its headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria.
It connects the African continent to the world at large by providing payment solutions for businesses around the globe. To date, Flutterwave has processed 100 million transactions valued at over $5.4 billion for global leaders, including Uber and Booking.com.
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