Nigerian billionaire Olugbenga Agboola’s Flutterwave advances IPO plans
After resolving allegations of financial impropriety in Kenya, Flutterwave, the fintech group led by Nigerian tech billionaire Olugbenga Agboola, is making significant strides toward its plans for an initial public offering (IPO).
The San Francisco- and Lagos-based fintech giant, which ranks as Africa’s largest startup, has announced that the IPO is poised to facilitate access to more expansive international partnerships.
Agboola, a top figure among Africa’s tech entrepreneurs and the CEO of Flutterwave, highlighted the forthcoming IPO as a pivotal step in the company’s trajectory.
Agboola emphasized that going public would enable the firm to attract large global clients who seek a congruence of compliance and a global perspective.
“There’s some kind of customer we’ll attract when we are public,” he said. “The large global clients who need you to have the same level of compliance and level of global view that they have.”
This announcement comes exactly a year after the fintech firm initially disclosed its consideration of an IPO on the NASDAQ stock exchange in a move to allow investors to purchase shares in the company on the open market.
The fast-growing payments startup has planned its IPO on the tech-heavy NASDAQ as it reaches a scale and trajectory comparable to those of publicly traded companies. The startup, which has recorded rapid growth since its inception, chose NASDAQ due to its alignment with the scale and trajectory exhibited by established publicly traded firms.
In February 2022, Flutterwave became Africa’s most valuable tech startup after obtaining $250 million in a Series-D funding round, increasing the company’s valuation to more than $3 billion.
According to an analysis by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index utilizing Pitchbook data, Agboola’s stake in Flutterwave surged to a value exceeding $370 million after the company’s funding round last year in February.
Since its inception in 2016, Flutterwave has garnered investments from notable venture capital firms such as Tiger Global Management LLC.
The company has also cultivated partnerships with industry giants, including Alibaba’s Alipay, Uber Technologies Inc., Audiomack, and Netflix Inc.
In a bid to expand its reach to global clients, Flutterwave sealed a pivotal technological partnership earlier this year with Microsoft, the multinational tech corporation co-founded by U.S. billionaires Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
This five-year partnership will see Flutterwave harness Microsoft Azure, the esteemed cloud computing platform, to engineer its next-generation platform. This joint effort seeks to fortify payment infrastructure not only across Africa but also on a global scale.