After the end of a Series B funding round, Flutterwave, a San-Francisco and Lagos based Fintech Company, has announced that it has raised $35 million. Co-led by New York-based company, Grey Croft, and eVentures, the round had in attendance companies like Visa, CRE Ventures, FIS, Green Visor, and Endeavor.
Flutterwave is a Fintech Company that provides a payment gateway for companies like Jumia, Wakanow, Uber, and Booking.com. At the close of the latest round of funding, it announced partnerships with the FIS owned payment processor, Worldpay, and Visa, with an intent to target the northern and francophone countries of Africa.
Through these partnership deals, Flutterwave becomes Worldpay’s only African payment partner, and can now issue Visa cards and use Visa networks in the processing of payments.
Meanwhile, the investment by Visa marks its first buy-in with Flutterwave, with which it partnered in 2019 to provide an individual/consumer-based payment platform, currently called ‘Barter by Flutterwave’. The payment platform allows persons to make transactions across borders.
In light of the latest funding round, Flutterwave is expected to improve this service and expand its network, by permitting the allotment of physical and simulated visa cards and also the use of Visa networks for payment processes.
Founded and managed by top individuals, majorly former managers from KPMG, Standard Bank Nigeria, Access Bank of Nigeria, and JP Morgan, Flutterwave enables business-to-business (B2B) payment among companies operating within Africa and in their transactions with overseas companies.
Olugbenga Agboola, co-founder and current CEO of Flutterwave, in an interview with Reuters says “We have built a technology infrastructure that is steadily being recognized as the bridge to connect the payment system, we have focused on enterprise clients and now we are going to deepen that and also show how we can help small business scale their business when they use us as their payment partner”
In another interview with TechCrunch, Agboola reveals the company’s diverse expertise, especially in education, gaming, eCommerce, travel, and of course, fintech, stating that the company doesn’t “just want to be a payment technology company”.
Ever since its launch in 2016, Flutterwave has offered several application program interfaces (APIs) which can be modified by its in-house developers.
In 2019, the start-up announced that it processed a total of 107 million transactions worth about $5.4 billion.
Agboola says that Flutterwave hopes to flourish in everyone of its current markets including Zambia, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Tanzania, and the UK.
In 2019, the start-up was responsible for developing the payment integration for Cardi B’s shows during her visit to Nigeria and Ghana.
