US-headquartered digital payment platform developer Flutterwave completed a $35m series B round on Tuesday that included payment services firm Visa and financial services technology provider FIS.
Greycroft and e.Ventures co-led the round, which included fellow venture capital firms CRE Venture Capital and Green Visor Capital. It boosted the company’s funding to $55m since it was founded in 2016.
Flutterwave has built a digital payment offering tailored for the African market that enables online merchants to sell their goods through an app or e-commerce site, and retailers to accept payment through a point-of-sale system anywhere they can get a wifi signal.
The series B funds will support Flutterwave’s expansion across North Africa and other parts of the continent where French is the main spoken language. It has also signed commercial deals with both the corporate investors.
Visa will help the company expand its Barter and Rave offerings through its products, while FIS will incorporate its technology for African users of its own Worldpay e-commerce payment product. Flutterwave had participated in the 2016 cohort of FIS FinTech Accelerator.
Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, founder and chief executive of Flutterwave, said: “We are helping businesses in Africa and globally accept payment and to scale by being the payment technology that connects Africa to the world.
“We have built a technology infrastructure that is steadily being recognised as the bridge to connect the payment system. We are excited to be working with our newest commercial partners, Visa and FIS, and investors to build the dominant payments platform in Africa.”
Flutterwave had raised a total of $20m as of late 2018 when investors including payment services firm Mastercard, CRE Venture Capital, Fintech Collective, 4DX Ventures and Raba Capital added an undisclosed amount to the $10m in series A funding it received the year before.
Greycroft and Green Visor co-led the round’s first tranche, investing together Glynn Capital and existing investor with Y Combinator.
