Fintech

Flutterwave is Nigeria’s third Unicorn as it raises $170m in Series C Round

Foremost fintech startup, Flutterwave has just become Nigeria’s third unicorn company and with such an interesting timeline to this.

The African-focused company just recently announced that it closed a $170 million Series C round which now pegs the company’s value at over $1 billion.

According to tech blog Techcrunch, the funding round was led by a New York-based private investment firm Avenir Growth Capital as well as U.S. hedge investment company Tiger Global.

Other existing investors who also participated in the round of funding includes DST Global, Early Capital Berrywood, Green Visor Capital, Greycroft Capital, Insight Ventures, PayPal, Salesforce Ventures, Tiger Management, Worldpay FIS 9yards Capital.

This funding round which puts the company’s valuation at well over $1 billion is a first in many regards as it puts the fintech startup in such an interesting position.

It makes it the third Nigerian company to become a unicorn, next only to payment processing company Interswitch and e-commerce platform Jumia.

The company had just last year closed its Series B round worth $35 million while declaring that it had processed 107 million transactions worth $5.4 billion.

Just within that period and now, the numbers have increasingly grown as the company has processed over 140 million transactions worth more than $9 billion with an impressive line up of clientele which includes some of Africa’s biggest companies including Uber, Facebook and Booking.com.

It has been an impressive home run for the ocmpany which is now looking to rapidly expand its customer base with the new funding just secured.

So far the company has raised $225 million in total and is one of the very few startups on the African continent that has been able to secure more than $20 million in funding.

Speaking on the funding the company’s founder and Chief Executive Officer, Olugbenga Agboola said, “Our successes would not be possible without our amazing people, who work tirelessly to achieve our goals, the trust, and support we have received from our investors, partners, and customers as well as regulatory bodies like the CBN, which under the leadership of Emefiele has created enabling environment for technology, innovation, and financial inclusion.”

Flutterwave was founded in 2016 by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and Ologunro Agboola with offices in Lagos and San Fransisco and provides payment solution to businesses through its APIs.