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TechInAfrica — Flutterwave, a San Fransisco and Lagos-based fintech B2B startup, recently awarded as one of the most valued companies as of October 2019 by Y Combinator. This is a remarkable cumulative valuation of over US$155 million. 19 of all the companies had a valuation of more than US$1 billion.
Other companies on the list had a valuation of at least US$150 million and among them is Flutterwave from Nigeria which ranked 97. Compared to last year’s list, there was no company from Africa at all.
Flutterwave is a startup that facilitates online payments between African companies. The company has secured USD$20.4 million in disclosed funding to date which is a reliably astonishing amount for an African startup.
The company was co-founded by the current CEO, Olugbenga Agboola, who has contributed to fintech development solutions in financial institutions such as Paypal. The co-founder, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, which exited from Flutterwave in 2018, is also the co-founder of Andela, a large tech company. Both played an important role in Flutterwave high rank, looking at its leadership, funding, and partnership.
Flutterwave reached the amount of funding with 9 rounds. In 2018, the company completed its Series A extension round, which came from Mastercard, CRE Ventures, Fintech Collective, 4DX Ventures, Raba Capital, and other investors. The seed round has started in 2017 which came from Greycroft Partners and Green Visor, and joined by Y Combinator and Glynn Capital.
Flutterwave worked alongside Alipay, the digital wallet by China’s largest e-commerce platform, Alibaba in July this year. This strategy is an attempt to encourage payments between Africa and China and expand Africa’s market to Chinese buyers.
The company has been expanding to other African countries, such as Kenya and Ghana. June this year, Flutterwave expanded to South Africa after its expansion to Uganda last year.
This acknowledgment brings a huge impact on Flutterwave. Other than Paystack and Kobo360, Flutterwave is one of the few African companies to graduate from Y Combinator.
Y Combinator is a seed accelerator based in America, from which companies such as Airbnb and Stripe successfully took off. Twice a year, it selects startups that receive US$150,000 for 7% equity in the startups. The selected startups then move to Silicon Valley for 3 months to receive support, mentorship, and more funding.
Source: weetracker.com
