Africa’s prominent payments technology company, Flutterwave, has announced a strategic investment from the U.S. blockchain firm Ripple. This investment is part of Flutterwave’s Series E funding round, which has assigned a valuation of $3.2 billion to the company.
While specific details regarding the amount of Ripple’s investment were not disclosed, Flutterwave highlighted that the partnership will facilitate the integration of Ripple’s USD-denominated stablecoin, RLUSD, along with Ripple’s payments network and the XRP Ledger (XRPL) into its payment infrastructure. The integration aims to establish a “stablecoin-first” payment ecosystem, where RLUSD will serve as the primary settlement asset for high-volume transactions, particularly via the Send App’s remittance channels.
Additionally, Flutterwave and Ripple plan to launch a unified API that will connect Flutterwave’s domestic payment systems with Ripple Payments, thereby enhancing global transaction capabilities. This merger promises to mitigate traditional challenges in African cross-border payments, such as extended transaction delays and high foreign exchange costs.
Commenting on the investment, Flutterwave’s founder and CEO, Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, described the partnership as a significant milestone in the company’s growth. He expressed confidence that the collaboration would lead to faster, more affordable cross-border transactions, ultimately creating a “payment superhighway” linking African commerce to the global economy. Agboola emphasized that this initiative serves as a critical advancement for Nigerian and African financial independence in the digital age, ensuring the region’s active participation in the evolving digital asset landscape.
Flutterwave operates across 35 African nations and has been at the forefront of developing digital asset capabilities. Last year, it introduced stablecoin-based payment solutions that allow users to transact with dollar-pegged tokens. The company has successfully raised over $500 million in funding and has processed more than one billion transactions, totaling in excess of $50 billion.
In recent developments, Flutterwave received a banking license in Nigeria to function as a microlender and made headlines by acquiring Mono, an open banking and financial data infrastructure provider, expanding its services further in the continent.
