Nigerian payment firm, Flutterwave has disclosed its expansion plans to Francophone and northern Africa as it raises a $35 million Series B round. The deal is in partnership with payment processing company, WorldPay and payment giant, Visa.
This disclosure was made by Flutterwave’s Chief Executive Officer and co-founder, Ologunro Agboola.
Why it matters: The funding, which was led by VC firms, eVentures and Greyrcoft would now allow Flutterwave invest in its technology and business development as well as grow market share in its existing operating countries. Other VC firms that participated include Green Visor and Africa fund CRE Venture Capital.
In addition, due to the partnership, Flutterwave would now be the payment provider for Worldpay’s clients worldwide. Visa, which is another major partner in the series B round, would have its products like Visa physical and virtual cards expanded on the Flutterwave network.
Speaking on the Visa and Worldpay’s partnership, Agboola expressed his optimism and said,
“We are excited to be working with our newest commercial partners, Visa and WorldPay FIS, and investors to build the dominant payments platform in Africa. We don’t just want to be a payment technology company, we have sector expertise around education, travel, gaming, e-commerce, fintech companies. They all use our expertise.”
[READ MORE: Flutterwave emerges Y Combinator’s African most valuable startup)
What you should know: The San Francisco and Lagos-based fintech startup was founded in 2016 by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and Ologunro Agboola. It has so far processed 107 million transactions worth $5.4 billion up from 14 million transactions worth $1.5 billion it did in 2017.
Flutterwave’s first series A funding happened three years ago when a total of $55 million was raised. The startup allows clients to tap its APIs and work with its developers to customize payments applications. Some of its existing customers currently include, car hailing firm, Uber; Booking.com and e-commerce company, Jumia.