Payment startup Flutterwave raises US$170m Series C funding to expand into new markets

NIGERIA – Flutterwave, African-focused payments startup, has closed a US$170 million Series C funding round led by New York-based private investment firm Avenir Growth Capital and U.S. hedge fund and investment firm Tiger Global, valuing the company over US$1 billion.

New and existing investors who participated in this round include DST Global, Early Capital Berrywood, Green Visor Capital, Greycroft Capital, Insight Ventures, PayPal, Salesforce Ventures, Tiger Management, Worldpay FIS 9yards Capital.

This new funding will be used to speed up customer acquisition in its present markets. It will also improve existing product offerings like Barter, where it has over 500,000 users, and introduce new offerings.

One of the new offerings is the Flutterwave Mobile, according to the founder, Flutter Mobile will turn merchants’ mobile devices into a point of sale, allowing them to accept payments and make sales.

Launched in 2016 by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and Ologunro Agboola as a Nigerian and U.S.-based payments company with offices in Lagos and San Francisco, Flutterwave helps businesses build customizable payments applications through its APIs.

Last year, the company closed its US$35 million Series Band had processed 107 million transactions worth US$5.4 billion. These numbers have increased impressively since then.

Now, the company has processed over 140 million transactions worth more than US$9 billion with an impressive clientele of international companies, including Booking.com, Facebook, Flywire, and Uber.

Flutterwave noted that more than 290,000 businesses use its platform to carry out payments and they can do so in 150 currencies and multiple payment modes including local and international cards, mobile wallets, bank transfers, Barter by Flutterwave.

Flutterwave has an active presence in 11 African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa, and at the time of its Series B just over one year ago had processed 100 million transactions valued at over US$5.4 billion for global leaders including Uber and Booking.com. The funding is for expansion into new markets.