San Francisco and Lagos-based Flutterwave has raised $35 million in Series B funding that CEO Olugbenga "GB" Agboola said will go directly towards expanding the fintech firm's presence in Africa.
"For the new capital, the goal is to pretty much double down on our expansion in Africa," Agboola told Cheddar.
The payment technology firm, which helps merchants and consumers process transactions online and at the point-of-sale, is banking on Africa's youth demographic to drive growth.
"If you look at Nigeria, for example, population is 200 million-plus people, average age is between 20 to 30 — that has been the driving force of our expansion strategy," Agboola said.
The company, which counts Uber and Booking.com among its clients, currently operates in Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa, and has plans to expand to Zambia, Malawi, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Morocco, and Egypt.
"Africa is a massive consumer of everything from the West," Agboola said.
He added that many young Africans subscribe to Netflix or Spotify and buy products like Apple AirPods. His goal is to better connect these consumers to the global market, and, on the flip side, make it easier for local merchants to sell their wares to anyone in the world.
Rather than entering one market at a time, Flutterwave is trying to quickly expand its footprint across the continent and become the payment option of choice for millions of young Africans.
"One big differentiator that we have is we see Africa as one market," Agboola said.
Partnerships with Visa and Worldpay have already helped Flutterwave expand its customer base globally. Now it plans to use the latest round of funding to hire additional business development staff and technology developers to lead the expansion into more countries.
Stocks opened higher for the first time this week as Wall Street digested positive economic data that showed inflation was cooling.
Fans of the Grand Theft Auto series got a glimpse of the latest release that's not due out until 2025. The trailer was officially released after a leak on the 'X' platform, giving an idea to industry experts of the massive effect GTA will have on the gaming sector. Cheddar News senior reporter Michelle Castillo breaks it all down.
Tax season is around the corner as soon as we conclude the holiday festivities. Mark Steber, chief tax information officer with Jackson Hewitt, joined Cheddar News to discuss some tax changes that people should be aware of and what to expect during next year's tax filing season.
There's a winning lottery ticket in Florida worth $44 million that's gone unclaimed and is set to expire next week.
Getting crafty for the holidays to entertain guests can be pretty expensive. Cheddar News explains how you can do all of that on a budget.
New regulations from the U.S. government may cause the price of electric vehicles to go up.
New data shows job openings fell in October even though hiring remains healthy.
The holiday season is here and it could be a stressful time as people plan shopping, cooking and traveling. Sally Holmes, editor-in-chief of InStyle Magazine, joined Cheddar News to discuss a new social media trend #Treatculture that helps people take a moment to treat themselves and how that is a psychological benefit to relieve stress.
English Wikipedia raked in more than 84 billion views this year, according to numbers released Tuesday by the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit behind the free, publicly edited online encyclopedia. And the most popular article was about ChatGPT (yes, the AI chatbot that’s seemingly everywhere today).
Wikipedia has released its list of most viewed articles for 2023 with the site seeing over 84 billion visits. The most searched topic was ChatGPT with nearly 50 billion page views
