Flutterwave

Flutterwave was founded in 2016 by Olugbenga "GB" Agboola, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, and Adeleke Adekoya, with a stated aim of building unified payment infrastructure to help businesses accept and process payments across Africa's fragmented currency and regulatory landscape. The company operates across more than 30 African countries and has secured over 50 regulatory licences globally, including 34 U.S. Money Transmitter Licences. In Nigeria, it holds a Switching and Processing licence and an International Money Transfer Operator licence from the Central Bank, and secured a national microlending licence in April 2026, permitting it to hold customer deposits and offer lending directly.

A Series E round completed in mid-2026, including a strategic investment from Ripple aimed at accelerating stablecoin-based cross-border settlement, lifted the company's valuation to approximately $3.25 billion. Flutterwave has continued expanding partnerships with Nigerian government agencies, including with the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria and the Federal Ministry of Youth Development, and has processed digital tax collections on behalf of Nigeria's Federal Inland Revenue Service.

The company's growth has not been without difficulty, including a 2022 fraud investigation in Kenya that was substantially resolved in its favour, and a significant cybersecurity breach in late 2024, reported at approximately ₦11 billion, that did not affect customer funds. In July 2025 Flutterwave reduced its workforce by roughly half in Kenya and South Africa as part of a restructuring toward profitability and core markets including Nigeria, and by the first half of 2025 reported that monthly profit margins had doubled compared with its 2024 average. Flutterwave has received significant international recognition, including being named to TIME's 100 Most Influential Companies list in both 2021 and 2025, the latter placing it in TIME's 'Titans' category alongside firms including Amazon and Netflix.