Flutterwave Pushes on With IPO Plans

Flutterwave a Nigerian fintech unicorn is pressing ahead with plans for an initial public offering (IPO) after making headway in resolving allegations of financial impropriety in Kenya, its chief executive officer said.

Olugbenga Agboola, who is also a co-founder of the pan-African payments company said in an interview with Bloomberg, that Flutterwave has won approval for the first step in securing the right to operate in Kenya.

Since its founding in 2016, Flutterwave has rapidly expanded and now has a presence in about 30 African countries. Agboola has led funding rounds, with one in January last year tripling the company’s valuation to $3 billion.

Agboola’s IPO plans were roiled in 2022, when the Kenyan High Court froze Flutterwave’s bank accounts under anti-money laundering rules and the central bank said it wasn’t licensed to operate payments services in the country.

Based in Lagos and San Francisco, Flutterwave has attracted investments from global venture capital firms.

Flutterwave said that its payment processing business through its payments app, SendApp, increased 23-fold in the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2022.

Payments through point-of-sale devices rose more than fivefold and revenue in its small and medium business unit jumped almost fourfold.