FinTech payments company Flutterwave continues to expand aggressively on the African continent, cementing its place as Africa’s leading payments technology company.
Founded in 2016, the Silicon Valley-based startup specializes in individual and consumer transfers and has grown to become one of the fastest growing payments companies in the world, processing about 100 million transactions valued at over $5.4 billion since its inception.
The Pan-African payments startup operates across over 33 African countries, serving close to 300,000 merchants including customers like Uber, Booking.com, Flywire and Facebook.
The firm was one of many in the sector to benefit from the shift to digital payments fueled by the pandemic, generating revenue growth of 226% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2018 and 2020.
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In March of this year, the FinTech attained unicorn status after a $170 million Series C funding round, backed by U.S. hedge fund and investment firm Tiger Global and New York-based private investment firm Avenir Growth Capital, valued the company at over $1 billion. That capital raise brought the firm’s total fundraising to $225 million since it launched five years ago.
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At the time of the fundraising, the payments startup became the fourth Africa-focused FinTech — behind Interswitch, Fawry and Jumia — to join the unicorn ranks, amid growing opportunities in the FinTech services sector on the continent.
It is all the more reason why anticipation of an initial public offering (IPO) has been mounting for months, a move CEO and Co-Founder Olugbenga Agboola said the firm could eventually consider. “We may consider the possibility of listing in New York or a possible dual listing in New York and Nigeria,” Agboola told Reuters in March.
Here, we take a look at some of the recent big-name partnerships linked to the Africa-focused firm that continues to position itself as the leading payments technology company in the region.
1. Enhancing Payment and Transaction Options in Eastern Africa with Airtel Money
In September, Flutterwave inked a deal with Airtel Money, the company’s latest partnership as it looks to expand Airtel Money services to businesses across East Africa, where Airtel currently has over 19.2 million East African customers.
Through the deal, businesses in Uganda, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Kenya will be able to integrate Flutterwave and facilitate payments from Airtel Money customers, as well as from merchant clients who find it cheaper, faster and more convenient to make bulk payments directly to their employees’ Airtel Money wallets.
The company’s goal is to “support African businesses digitize their payments methods,” Agboola said, as shifting consumer behavior and increased eCommerce drive further adoption of mobile money payments.
2. Enabling Electronic Transfers and Payments via MTN Mobile Money (Momo)
Last month, the company also announced that it had entered a mobile money partnership with South-Africa based MTN Group, Africa’s largest telecommunications provider, allowing businesses integrating Flutterwave to receive payments via MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) in five countries: Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Zambia, Uganda and Rwanda.
The move is aimed at helping millions of unbanked people in those countries into mainstream financial services as well as enable Flutterwave to offer MTN Momo as a payment method to its business customers.
Commenting on the partnership, Agboola said that because Africa has one of the highest growth rates for mobile money adoption and eCommerce worldwide, “it makes sense” for Flutterwave to help provide a seamless payment method that will enable African businesses to fully take advantage of the eCommerce boom in the region.
“Our goal has always been to grow a new wave of prosperity in Africa by creating more avenues for businesses in Africa to accept payments,” he said. “With this partnership, we can achieve this while creating endless possibilities for our customers.”
3. Connecting SMBs to Paypal’s Account Holders Worldwide
Earlier this year, Flutterwave announced a collaboration with global giant Paypal in a deal that will allow PayPal customers to pay African merchants through the FinTech startup’s platform.
By doing so, Flutterwave can now easily connect small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) in Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Mauritius, Malawi, Mozambique and Senegal to PayPal’s 377 million-plus account holders worldwide.
Learn more: PayPal, Flutterwave Deal Targets African Market
The alliance is meant to eliminate a barrier to cross-border commerce, according to Flutterwave, which like Paypal has benefited from the digital payments and eCommerce boom triggered by the pandemic.
4. Commercial Agreements With Visa and Worldpay to Foster eCommerce Boom
Last year, the payment technology provider signed commercial agreements with Visa and Worldpay from FIS, two firms that participated in Flutterwave’s $35 million Series B round aimed at boosting its expansion across Francophone and North Africa.
The partnership with FIS, a multi-billion-dollar Fortune 500 company, will enable Worldpay merchant clients in Europe or the U.S. to accept payments from their customers in Africa. “If someone goes to pay Netflix with an African card, it just works,” Agboola said at the time.
For the time being, Flutterwave’s integration with Worldpay will only be available in Nigeria and South Africa, two countries experiencing an eCommerce boom through mobile phones.
And through the Visa partnership, Flutterwave “will further scale its consumer payment service, Barter, and its merchant acquiring service, Rave, through Visa products such as Visa Direct, Visa QR and virtual card,” the company stated in a release, adding that the deal will drive additional utility to the close to 90,000 businesses as well as the increasing number of Barter users on Flutterwave’s platform.
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