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Flutterwave’s $100 Million Raise Anchors Nigeria’s Best Start-Up Funding Year Since 2022
Nigeria’s start-up scene had a good nine months, and one of its most recognisable names sits near the centre of the numbers. Africa: The Big Deal, a tracker of African start-up funding, counts $100 million raised by the payments company Flutterwave in the first nine months of 2026, one of four deals that together made up 69 percent of everything Nigerian start-ups raised.
The tracker’s data, reported by Nairametrics on October 21, shows Nigerian ventures raising $635 million between January and September, 2.6 times the $247 million of the same period a year earlier and the country’s strongest start since 2022. That put Nigeria back on top of the continent, ahead of Egypt at $445 million, Kenya at $201 million and South Africa at $182 million. The biggest cheques were $250 million for the mobility financing firm Moove, $100 million for Flutterwave, $50 million for the e-commerce group Jumia and $40 million for the crypto infrastructure company Yellow Card, which add up to $440 million. Nigeria also had the most start-ups raising at least $100,000, at 77.
A note on what the $100 million refers to. The Big Deal’s figure appears to correspond to Flutterwave’s Series E round, which closed in mid-June. Ripple took an equity stake on June 16 in a round that valued Flutterwave at about $3.2 billion and lifted its total funding past $500 million, according to coverage at the time. But sources disagree on the size of the round. One data registry lists $262.75 million for the Series E, another lists the amount as undisclosed, and none of the coverage reviewed carries a company statement giving a total, so $100 million is best read as the tracker’s count, not an announced figure. It also does not include what Flutterwave took in from Circle Ventures on July 7, whose financial terms were not disclosed.
What did the money buy? Ripple’s investment came with a plan to bring its RLUSD stablecoin into Flutterwave’s infrastructure, and the Circle deal embedded USDC settlement so that a merchant can collect in naira, shillings or another local currency and settle in dollars. Chief executive Olugbenga Agboola framed it as building the rails for money movement from Africa, and said the aim is to make Flutterwave the continent’s default stablecoin gateway. The company, founded in 2016 and now active in more than 30 African countries, says it has processed over $50 billion in payments for more than a million businesses, including Uber and Booking.com.
The capital arrives alongside moves to own more of the payments chain. In January, Flutterwave acquired the open-banking start-up Mono in a deal reported at between $25 million and $40 million in stock, and in April it received a microlender licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria, reports said, steps described as an effort to control more of the stack instead of relying on partner banks. A stronger balance sheet also matters as Nigeria builds new rules for digital assets, since stablecoin settlement depends on regulatory approval, reserves and banking relationships.
Caution is warranted. A funding tracker’s total says nothing about profitability, and the $635 million figure leans heavily on a handful of large deals: with Moove announcing plans to exit Nigeria this month, headline funding and local activity do not always move together. Logistics overtook fintech as Africa’s largest funded sector by value this year, at $780 million against $760 million, though fintech still led in the number of funded companies.
For founders and investors, the signal is that large cheques are still flowing to Nigerian fintech with strategic backers, especially where stablecoins and infrastructure are involved. For customers, whether that capital translates into cheaper, faster cross-border payments will show up in product launches and pricing over the next few quarters.
