AFRICA – Flutterwave, the Silicon-Valley based and Pan-African focussed payments company has acquired Nigeria creator platform Disha in an undisclosed deal but is expected to be a six-figure amount.
Disha is a platform allowing digital creators to curate and receive payments from their content and portfolios worldwide.
Early 2021, Disha made an announcement of its closing down for unclear reasons.
Under the terms of the deal terms, Disha will carry on operating as a separate brand and the start-up’s 20,000 users will earn value from their digital content using Flutterwave’s pay-out and collection solutions.
Disha was founded in 2019 by Evans Akanno, Rufus Oyemade, and Blessing Abeng.
Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, Flutterwave founder and CEO described the investment as a way for the cross-border startup to offer new opportunities to freelancers and creators.
“Beyond Disha users, this is an exciting effort to equip the global creator community of about 50 [million] individuals with innovative tools to grow their craft,” Agboola added.
The fintech unicorn will allow Disha to continue operating as its own brand.
The focus will instead go towards its features and integrations that will help those creators easily schedule meetings, exhibitions and build sustainable income through subscriptions and leveraging technology.
Most of Disha’s customers are based in the US, EU, and U.K markets, presenting a chance for the company to cater to those who create, own, sell or share digital experiences through NFTs.
Flutterwave has had an active 2021, closing strategic partnerships with Nigeria Digital bank 9PSB in September, Currencycloud, and Airtel Money in early October 2021.
The company also announced another collaboration with Standard Bank, Africa’s largest bank by assets, to provide Standard’s individual and business customers in nine African countries with access to Flutterwave’s enhanced digital payments system.
The two companies will also build e-commerce, card issuing, buy now, pay later (BNPL) and other capabilities for the millions of consumers in the region.
in March 2021, it launched a collaboration with PayPal that will allow the global payments giant’s 370 million-plus account holders to pay African merchants through the start-up’s platform.
Founded in 2016, Flutterwave has become one of the fastest-growing payment companies in the world, processing about 100 million transactions valued at over US$5.4 billion since its launch.
The firm operates across 33 African countries, serving close to 300,000 merchants, including Uber, Booking.com, Flywire and Facebook.
According to a PYMNTS report, the firm was one of the many beneficiaries of the pandemic-induced digital shift in payments, recording revenue growth of 225% between 2018 and 2020.
Other creator platform start-ups in Africa are such as Selar and Irawo.
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