Africa-focused payments technology company Flutterwave has received a “strategic investment” from Ripple.
In a statement, Flutterwave said the investment from the US blockchain company formed part of its Series E funding round, which values the business at $3.2bn.
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However, Flutterwave did not disclose how much Ripple invested or the size of Ripple’s shareholding.
The company said the partnership will integrate Ripple’s USD-denominated stablecoin RLUSD, Ripple’s payments network and the XRP Ledger (XRPL) into Flutterwave’s payment stack.
According to Flutterwave, the integration is designed to support a “stablecoin-first” payment architecture. RLUSD, embedded into Flutterwave’s payment rails and its Send App remittance corridors, will be used as a primary settlement asset for “high-volume channels”.
Flutterwave and Ripple also plan to deploy a unified API. The API is intended to link Flutterwave’s domestic payments network with Ripple Payments, Ripple’s global payments network.
The payments technology company added the merging of fiat payment methods with Ripple’s enterprise blockchain tools will address the “historical friction points” in African cross-border payments, including multi-day delays and FX costs.
Flutterwave founder and CEO Olugbenga “GB” Agboola said: “This investment marks a pivotal moment in our journey, enabling us to significantly scale our infrastructure and expand our stablecoin-enabled payments roadmap.
“By unlocking faster settlement and lower-cost cross-border payments, we are building a payment superhighway that connects African commerce directly to the global economy.
“This partnership is a catalyst for Nigerian and African sovereignty in the digital financial age, ensuring our markets are primary participants in the global digital asset revolution.”
Flutterwave operates in 35 African countries and has been developing digital asset-related services. Last year, it launched stablecoin-based payment services that enable businesses and consumers to transact and hold dollar-pegged tokens.
The company has raised more than $500m and said it has processed over one billion transactions worth more than $50bn.
In April, Flutterwave secured a banking licence in Nigeria to operate as a microlender. It also acquired Mono, an open banking and financial data infrastructure provider in Africa, earlier this year.
