Flutterwave Becomes Africa's Most Valuable Startup After Reaching $3bn Valuation

Flutterwave has reached over $30bn valuation after raising $250m setting the record of the most valuable investment in Africa at the moment.

In March 2021, the San Francisco-headquartered and Lagos-based startup raised $170 million in a Series C round fromTiger Global and Avenir at a valuation of $1 billion. The latest financing, which confirms aBloomberg scoop from October, brings Flutterwave’s total raise since its inception six years ago to $475 million (it raised a $35 million Series B in 2020 and a $20 million Series A in 2018).

At $3 billion, Flutterwave is currently the highest valued African startup, surpassing the $2 billion valuation set by SoftBank-backed fintechOPayand FTX-backed cross-border payments platformChipper Cash last year.

Flutterwave has been at the forefront of a group of companies that have made Lagos the hottest ecosystem in Africa, as investors seek to tap into a severely underserved market of 200mn Nigerians, tens of millions of whom lack bank accounts.

Olugbenga Agboola, the chief executive, said the flood of money pouring into African start-ups shows that “people now realise the fact that Africa is ‘the next billion’ continent” — referring to the population of people least connected to the internet.

“People now see the opportunities that Africa brings to the table, [that it could be] the next India,” he said. “Our average age is 19 to 21: the opportunities here are pretty much endless.”

The Lagos-based company, founded in 2016, is now the biggest payments start-up on the continent. It has processed 200mn transactions worth more than $16bn in 34 African countries.

Agboola said Flutterwave would use the funds to expand beyond Africa to other emerging markets including those in Latin America, and to economies linked to the continent such as the US, UK, United Arab Emirates and Canada.

“Africa does not exist in isolation,” he said. These places “are connected to Africa — for example, an African business exporting to the US does not have to go to the US and use somebody else, they can use Flutterwave”.

The fundraising comes amid a wave of investment in start-ups targeting Africa’s unbanked population and the payments system that will undergird a mobile-first financial system. More than half of Africans lack a bank account, the highest percentage in the world, according to the World Bank.

Over the past few months, francophone Africa-focused Wave raised $200mn, South Africa’s MFS Africa managed $100mn and cross-border payments company Chipper Cash raised $150mn.

Last year, African start-ups raised a record $4.65bn, roughly double 2020’s tally, according to Briter Bridges, a data research company focused on Africa’s technology sector. Roughly two-thirds of the total went to companies, and Nigeria was the top target.