Flutterwave Inc., the foremost payments startup in Africa, is embarking on an expansion into India through a strategic partnership with IndusInd Bank Ltd., a prominent financial institution in the Asian nation.
The expansion deal was sealed in India during the G20 summit, which Gbenga Agboola, CEO and co-founder of Flutterwave, attended in the company of Nigeria’s president Bola Tinubu, per Bloomberg.
According to Olugbenga Agboola, this partnership agreement will empower Flutterwave to extend its remittance product into the second-largest economy in Asia.
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“The Indian expansion for Flutterwave will be the first African company to do this at scale where remittances from India to Africa become seamless and quick,” Agboola said in an interview Friday.
Before now, Flutterwave had witnessed significant growth, buoyed by its expansion to many other countries in Africa. The payment giant has expanded to 30 African countries since its founding in 2016. Its move into the Indian market is expected to double its valuation, currently placed at $3 billion.
According to the information available on its website, IndusInd Bank serves a diverse customer base of approximately 35 million individuals, large corporations, and various government entities across the country. This huge customer base is expected to provide long-term cross-border payment-inspired growth for Flutterwave.
The pan-African payment company has become a darling of venture capital firms such as Tiger Global Management LLC, Y-Combinator, Visa Ventures, Mastercard, and Avenir Growth Capital. In January 2022, Flutterwave raised $250 million in series D funding led by B Capital Group, to reach its $3 billion valuation.
Based in Lagos and San Francisco, Flutterwave’s expansion strategy has been largely tied to partnerships. The company works with companies such as Alibaba Alipay, Uber, and Netflix.
The company has also successfully forged a partnership with the French company Capgemini, a leading IT service management company, which is expected to enhance and fortify its engineering infrastructure, per Bloomberg.
“We are a partnership driven organization. So as we see more bank partners to work with in India, we’ll definitely embrace that,” Agboola said.
Flutterwave’s expansion into India is also expected to boost its chances at IPO. Agboola said last month that the IPO serves as a means to achieve its objectives to bolster interactions with international clients and uphold global compliance protocols.
“There’s some kind of customers we’ll attract when we are public. The large global clients who need you to have the same level of compliance and level of global view that they have,” he said.