Conflicting news from Flutterwave, the digital payment company, which I called “amazing” many months ago. First, the good news is that Flutterwave is growing. It has raised new funds, bringing the total to $20 million. The tough news is that the co-founder/CEO, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, is leaving the company. Iyin had co-founded Andela which he left for Flutterwave. Full statements from the company and the former CEO below.

Flutterwave is exciting, not just for its vision, but also for the speed it is pursuing it. The firm provides technology, infrastructure and services  which help global merchants, payment service providers and African banks process and accept payments on any channel  including web, ATM, POS and mobile. It simplifies the process of managing the African problem – many small nation borders – by building infrastructure for modern trade. From outside looking in, Flutterwave connects the world to Africa, and from inside Africa looking out to the world, Flutterwave can power unbounded opportunities, smoothing the exchange of funds in excess of 150 currencies.

FLUTTERWAVE COMPLETES SERIES A EXTENSION ROUND OF FINANCING, FORMER VISA CHAIRMAN AND CEO JOINS BOARD

Lagos, Nigeria – October 13th, 2018: Flutterwave, Inc. (“Flutterwave”) announced that it has completed its Series A Extension round of financing. The latest round of financing includes investments from Mastercard, CRE Ventures, Fintech Collective, 4DX Ventures, and Raba Capital, among others. Flutterwave has now raised over $20 million to date and its largest investors include Green Visor Capital and Greycroft Partners.

As part of the financing, current Green Visor Capital Chairman & General Partner and former Chairman & CEO of Visa, Joe Saunders, joined the Flutterwave Board of Directors.

In a separate development, Flutterwave CEO, Iyin Aboyeji, has stepped down to pursue family goals. In a farewell message, Iyin Aboyeji thanked the Flutterwave board and team.

“It’s been amazing working with the Flutterwave team to build another great African company and I’m excited for the future under its new leadership.”

Flutterwave Co-Founder, Olugbenga Agboola, will replace Iyin Aboyeji as CEO. Olugbenga Agboola is a Financial Technology Engineer, with core financial services technology experiences with Paypal, Google, GTBank, Accsss bank, Standard /StanbicIBTC Bank

Olugbenga Agboola, Flutterwave CEO: “On behalf of the entire Flutterwave team we wish Iyin luck in his future endeavors. Moving forward ; the entire Flutterwave team and I are excited for Flutterwave’s future and look forward to growing the company.”

Headquartered in San Francisco, Flutterwave is building modern payments technology and infrastructure for Africa to enable people and businesses to connect with the global economy.

Much like in mobile communications, Africa is leapfrogging traditional payments technology and Flutterwave is building the Pan-African infrastructure to become the standard bearer for modern payments. Flutterwave’s API makes it easier for the almost 24,000 businesses and individuals using its solution to process payments across Africa. The African market, marked by increasing cross-border requirements, multi-instrument and channel payments, and a drive for financial inclusion is primed for Flutterwave’s unique vision and offering.

About Flutterwave

Flutterwave is building modern payments technology and infrastructure for Africa. Its solution enables banks and merchants to replace multiple payment integrations with one simple API, which enables processing of any form of payment anywhere in Africa. Since its founding in May 2016, Flutterwave has processed over $2.3 billion in payments across 60 million transactions and partnered with Standard Bank, First Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, Zenith Bank, Access Bank, United Bank for Africa, and Ecobank. Flutterwave clients include Transferwise, Flywire, Booking.com, JumiaPay, and Uber, amongst others.

PRESS STATEMENT: IYINOLUWA ABOYEJI’S DEPARTURE FROM FLUTTERWAVE

Today will be my last day at Flutterwave. After much thought and prayer I decided to step down from my role as CEO and focus on giving back to the startup community I owe so much of my success to.

Just a little over 2 years ago in May of 2016, myself and my co-founders at Flutterwave started on this unlikely and amazing journey to build payments technology and infrastructure that could connect Africa to the global economy and usher in a new wave of prosperity across Africa. We knew it would be an incredibly difficult and intriguing mission but we never imagined we would have the kind of impact we did so quickly.

Two years later the team at Flutterwave has built one of the world fastest growing payments business of all time from Africa, processing over 700 billion naira in payments across over 50 million transactions generating revenues in the billions of naira. Beyond its scale, its human impact has been profound, from connecting thousands of riders and drivers to daily enabling thousands of families in diaspora share prosperity with their love ones at home. It has been an incredible privilege to lead the team through an era of incredible growth and impact. I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world.

This would have been impossible without the hard work and genius of the talented team of young people who are Flutterwave, the incredible support of our investors and advisors and the good will of so many who have been our biggest champions and advocates.

Over the next few months as I figure out what is next, I’ll be catching up on sleep, spending time with my family and supporting and advising startups in our community (more to come on that)

Everyone who knows me well know what matters most to me is my lifelong commitment to building the future of our country and our continent. As I take some time to rest and reflect on the incredible experiences I have had building two world class African success stories at Andela and Flutterwave – I am excited about the opportunities the future of our continent holds and I remain dedicated to supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs who will go on to build the next Andela’s and Flutterwave’s.

Thank you for your love and support on this journey

Yours in trust,

Ndubuisi Ekekwe had since resigned from Kobo360 board.

Kobo, West Africa’s logistics pioneer, was profiled by CNN this weekend.  I wrote about this firm in September 2017 and called it “Nigeria’s best logistics company”. It is amazing what the two founders have done here. Congratulations! (The co-founder Obi Ozor likes red caps.)

I like Kobo, a logistics startup that operates from Lagos, Nigeria. It is a very fine company deepening its capacity as a network orchestrator through aggregation. Kobo is positioning itself as a company of the future in the broad logistics sector.

If you own a truck and it is not in Kobo, you may be missing a lot. Kobo provides its drivers health insurance, supports them with school fees, and offers data-driven logistics efficiency, delighting value to drivers who see reverse utilization rate beat any record in Nigeria

Today, we estimate that every Nigerian uses a product moved by a truck within Kobo ecosystem at least once a day. It moves cargoes for leading brands like Flour Mills, Olam, etc. And it is just starting. This is a category-king business and it was born Nigerian.

Kobo – more roads are open.

According to Kantar TNS, the total number of enrolled BVN (bank verification number) users, in Nigeria, is close to 35 million as at September 2018. The implication is that we have 35 million people with bank accounts in a country of 200 million people.

This old video provides the distribution by state when the total BVN number was around 30 million BVN enrollees (numbers as at 2017 Kantar Fintech Summit, Aug 2017). There was also a case study on MMM, the ponzi scheme. Mr. Adebisi Shonubi, the Managing Director of the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), the organization that makes it possible for Nigerian banks to cross-serve customers (think of using ATM of another bank), provided the numbers including the distribution by states. Kano has about 6% bank penetration rate while Katsina is at 4%. But Lagos has already hit 50%.