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.
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