Investor Updates: Flutterwave valued at $3 billion after mega $250m Series D.

Flutterwave valued at $3 billion after mega $250m Series D

Highlights

• Nigeria-based payments giant Flutterwave has raised $250 million in Series D funding, raising the value of the company to over $3 billion.
• The latest backers of the Nigerian unicorn include B Capital Group, with participation from Alta Park Capital, Whale Rock Capital, Lux Capital, among others.
• Flutterwave raised $170 million in Series C a little under a year ago to push its valuation as of then to over $1 billion. The new funds will drive Flutterwave’s ambitious expansion plans.

Source: TechCrunch

Our Takeaway

Flutterwave becomes the highest valued African startup with this investment, a validation of the continent’s talent, innovation, and young inspiring people. It is also a huge endorsement in the growth of the business, innovation, and technology landscape in Africa. The mega funding also underlines a growing interest in Africa’s burgeoning payments market. Since its inception, Flutterwave has processed more than 200 million transactions valued at over $16 billion across 34 countries in Africa and served 900,000 customers.

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Nigeria’s agency banking CrowdForce gets $3.6m

Highlights

• Nigerian startup CrowdForce, a Y Combinator-backed agency banking platform, has raised a $3.6 million pre-Series A funding round.
• Initially established by Oluwatomi Ayorinde and Damilola Ayorinde in 2015 as Mobile Forms, CrowdForce came about after a 2018 pivot and rebrand. Its PayForce product is a PoS-enabled system providing ATM services, transfer, and bill payments. 
• The pre-Series A round, which is split between equity and debt, will be used to expand CrowdForce’s team, geographical operations, and marketing to increase its agent network. CrowdForce aims to grow its 7,000 active agents three-fold this year. 

Source: Disrupt Africa

Our Takeaway

With 4.8 bank branches and 19 ATMs for every 100,000 adults, compared to the world average of 13 bank branches and 40 ATMs, universal access to financial services in Nigeria remains a challenge. Available data also shows that less than one-third of Nigerian adults have access to a bank branch or ATM within one kilometer of where they live, especially for those in rural areas. CrowdForce is one of the agency banking players addressing the challenge in Africa’s most populous country.

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EU launches $170bn investment fund for Africa

Highlights

• The European Union (EU) has launched a new investment package worth €150 billion ($170 billion) for Africa to create an alternative to the “unfavorable and opaque Chinese funds”. 
• Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission President, made the announcement at a recent news conference in Dakar with Senegalese President Macky Sall. 
• The investment is half of the EU’s €300 billion Global Gateway scheme, launched last December and the funds will be disbursed over the next 7 years to finance internet infrastructures like submarine and terrestrial fiber optics cables, cloud and data infrastructures across the continent.

Source: TechCabal

Our Takeaway

Per the UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2021, cascading economic and health challenges due to the Covid-19 pandemic, combined with low prices of energy commodities, weighed heavily on foreign investment in Africa in 2020. Total direct investments from developed regions in the continent declined by 16% in 2020 to $40 billion, from $47 billion in 2019. While there is no data available on last year’s performance as of now, there are indications that FDI flows rebounded in 2021 with the recovery continuing into 2022.