Flutterwave

Flutterwave is a payments infrastructure company that lets businesses accept, send and manage money across Africa and internationally. Founded in Lagos and San Francisco in 2016 by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Olugbenga “GB” Agboola and Adeleke Adekoya, it grew out of Aboyeji's frustration paying African software developers at his earlier company, Andela. Agboola, previously the company's CTO, became CEO in 2018 after Aboyeji stepped down. Flutterwave now operates in more than 35 African countries plus the US, UK, Canada and parts of Europe, holding more than 50 regulatory licenses and having processed over $50 billion in payments across more than one billion transactions.

The company built its early growth on a single payments API and merchant checkout product, then added mobile money collections, a remittance app called Send, a virtual and physical card program, and payroll and treasury tools for businesses. In September 2022 Flutterwave obtained a switching and processing license from the Central Bank of Nigeria, and in April 2026 it won a national microfinance banking license, letting it hold customer deposits and extend credit directly rather than routing every transaction through partner banks.

Flutterwave has raised close to $500 million in priced venture rounds since its 2017 Series A, becoming Africa's most valuable startup after a $250 million Series D in February 2022 pushed its valuation above $3 billion. In January 2026 it acquired the Nigerian open banking provider Mono to cut third-party data costs and improve margins ahead of a possible future listing, and in June 2026 it closed a Series E that included a strategic investment from Ripple, lifting its valuation to roughly $3.2–$3.25 billion and pushing total funding past $500 million. Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin is being integrated into Flutterwave's payment rails and its Send remittance app. In July 2026, Circle Ventures made a separate, undisclosed-amount strategic investment to expand USDC stablecoin settlement across Flutterwave's platform, alongside its existing Ripple RLUSD partnership.

CEO Olugbenga Agboola has said Flutterwave's near-term priority is profitability and infrastructure ownership rather than a near-term listing, describing the Mono deal and new banking license as steps that make the company “a better candidate for everything,” including an eventual IPO that he has said would start with a Nigerian listing. In April 2026 the company publicly denied media reports describing a planned $75 million Nigerian government investment tied to an imminent IPO, saying no listing was imminent. The company has also weathered regulatory friction, including a 2022 freeze of roughly $52.5 million across accounts in Kenya over money-laundering and fraud allegations that a Kenyan court later found unsubstantiated in February 2023.