Flutterwave: History, founders, investors, funding & more

Flutterwave is a fintech company that is one of the top 5 tech unicorns in Africa with a valuation of over 1 billion dollars. Flutterwave simplifies payments by offering payment solutions to individuals and businesses.

Who are the founders of Flutterwave?

Flutterwave was founded in 2016 by two Nigerians, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and Olugbenga Agboola. With headquarters in San Francisco, California, the company operates in Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, and other African countries.  The idea of Flutterwave came up to  Aboyeji as he reflected on the challenges he encountered with sending money to Africa while he was involved with Andela. He believed that if the payment challenges faced by merchant partners were solved, then billions of dollars could be made.

The team of ex-bankers, entrepreneurs, and engineers worked on providing the award-winning technology core needed to provide businesses all around the world with a powerful, reliable, and intelligent payments gateway. The company wants to see Africans creating businesses and accepting payments from any part of the world.

Who are Flutterwave investors?

Flutterwave has received funding from investors since its inception in 2016 till date. According to a dealroom.co report, the total amount sunk in by investors is $225 million in Seed funding, Series A, Series B, Series C funding.

The following are Flutterwave investors:

Y Combinator, Google Developers Launchpad Accelerator, Green Visor Capital, Rayyan Islam, Arab Angel Fund, Golden Palm Investments, Lynett Capital, VC FinTech Accelerator, CRE Venture Capital, MasterCard, Fintech Collective, 4DX Ventures, Raba Capital, Plug and Play, Greycroft Partners, Glynn Capital Management, Headline, FIS, Visa, Avenir Growth Capital, Tiger Global Management, Salesforce Ventures, Insight Partners, Plug and Play Retailtech, Plug and Play Insurtech, CapitalX, Musha Ventures, Khosla Impact, HOF Capital, 9Yards Capital, Soma Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, LoftyInc Capital Management and John Binstead.

Investments made by Flutterwave

Flutterwave has invested in CinetPay, a Cote d’Ivoire based fintech startup that raised a $2.4 million seed round fund from Flutterwave and 4DX Ventures.

In November 2021, Flutterwave acquired Disha, a platform that enables digital content creators to curate, sell digital content portfolios and receive payments from their worldwide audience.

Solutions offered by Flutterwave

1. Checkout – For Businesses to collect payments from customers anywhere in the world in over 150 currencies including Naira, Dollars, Pounds, Euros and Yuan.
   
   With Checkout, convenient is a big deal as customers can make payments to you on any platform they are on, including mobile, web, Android or ios. This payment processor has passed the highest level of security audit, hence security of your transactions is assured.
2. . Card issuing – Making it possible to create, launch and manage cards. You can create cards for international payments.
   
   The cards can either be physical or virtual. I use the virtual Barter by Flutterwave card for my online payments and it has served me effectively.
   
   It is a Mastercard card and works best for cross border payments. Flutterwave gives you the power to build your card, customize its look, control where it can be used, how it can be used and how much money can be loaded on it or spent. The card solution is set for different levels of individual, small business owner, corporate organizations etc.
3. Store – Setting up an online store in minutes. Flutterwave makes it easy to create an online store in just minutes. As a buisness owner you can create your online store, add products and specifications including images and simply take your store online.
   
   This feature provides your customers with ideal payment and checkout experience, catering to their every need. The online store is compatible with ecommoerce shops like Shoopify and Woocommerce.
4. Invoice – This service helps one create professional invoices and track payments. It enables you manage your payments easily leading to easy sales and tax collection. You have the option of sending invoices in 150 currencies thereby increasing your reach to customers outside your country.
5. Payment links – Creating payment links for customers. You can create customized payment links based on your perculiar business links. The whole process is designed to be fast and seemless.
6. Grow – Seemless Business registration in Nigeria, Us, UK and other countries. Just input your information and Flutterwave will register your business as a legal entity anywhere in the world.
   Whether is corporate business registration, opening of a corporate bank account with a free international business card, flutterwave has you covered. The grow solution offers you access to a community of business owners who are utilizing flutterwave’s tools to build and grow their businesses.
7. Capital – Capital for Nigerian businesses. Flutterwave provides access to quick loans of up to 2 million Naira without collateral for Nigerian businesses. This loan can be accessed within two business days. Flutterwave partners with Sterling bank, Stanbic Ibtc, Wema bank, Zenith bank, Cash Connect and Mfwise microfinance bank to make this possible.

When did Flutterwave become a unicorn?

Flutterwave achieved its unicorn status in March 2021 after a Series C funding round of $170 million. It is estimated that more than 290,000 businesses use the flutterwave platform for payments.

The payments by the company are made in over 150 currencies using different payment channels including mobile wallets, bank transfers, local and international cards, etc.

Achievements of Flutterwave

From a small office space in Lagos with only a handful of staff, Flutterwave has become a major international payment processor scoring many achievements along its path. These include:

• Processed of over $2.5bn payments in more than 100m transactions in 2018
• Processed over 80 million transactions worth $7.5 billion in 2020
• 1200+  developers building on Flutterwave platform.
• Raising hundreds of millions of dollars in investments.
• Recognized as Pioneer on the TIME 2021 most influential companies in the world list.
• Retained key partnerships with Uber, Arik Air, Booking.com and Flywire
• Welcomed new customers like Standard Bank Africa, DusuPay(Uganda), BroadPay(Zambia) and PennySmart(Ghana).
• Won the Best Payments Company award at the prestigious Ghana eCommerce Awards ceremony
• Won Best Fintech Startup at Apps Africa Awards
• Achieved Unicorn status

How to contact Flutterwave

Address: No 8, Providence Street, Lekki Phase One, Lagos, Nigeria.

Twitter: @flwsupport

Email: hi@flutterwavego.com

Phone number: +234 1-8889595

0700-FLUTTERWAVE

The phone lines are open between 08:00 to 17:00 WAT, Mondays – Fridays

What does the future hold for Flutterwave?

If you make a lot of financial transactions, chances are that Flutterwave is the payment processor that you use. You are among the millions of people across Africa who use Flutterwave’s services.

Flutterwave is proof that Africa has all it takes to become the birthing place of the next set of unicorns and tech disruptors. The future Flutterwave is very promising as it continues to expand its services across the globe and meet the needs of millions of customers and clients.