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Flutterwave, Africa’s most valuable fintech company, has secured a Series E funding round at a $3.25 billion valuation following an investment from Ripple, a U.S.-based blockchain payments company.
The funding marks a milestone for African fintech, with the unicorn retaining its position as the continent’s most valuable fintech company.
A Deal Driving Flutterwave’s Move into Stablecoins
Ripple’s investment also deepens Flutterwave’s push into stablecoins. Both companies are integrating RLUSD, Ripple’s stablecoin, into Flutterwave’s payment infrastructure, allowing merchants and consumers to send, hold, and convert money using stablecoins.
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The African unicorn company did not reveal the size of this round, although it says it has now raised more than $500 million in funding to date. “Ripple did invest significantly in Flutterwave, an actual cash investment, so they are now an equity shareholder of the company,” Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, Flutterwave’s founder and chief executive, told TechCabal.
The integration would also connect Flutterwave’s network in 34 African countries to Ripple Payments, a global network that has processed more than $70 billion across 90+ markets.
Agboola said Flutterwave chose Ripple for three reasons: its technology infrastructure, regulatory credibility, and cheaper, faster cross-border money movement. Ripple will plug its RLUSD stablecoin and the XRP Ledger into Flutterwave’s payment rails to power cross-border settlement across the continent.
The deal gives Ripple an entry point into Africa’s fast-growing market for dollar-denominated payments. Mastercard projects the market will hit $1.5 trillion by 2030. “Cross-border value movement is one of the most underserved and highest-growth markets globally right now,” Agboola said.
“That is where the synergy with Ripple comes in. We bring Africa’s infrastructure at scale. Ripple brings expertise in digital settlement and stablecoins. Together, this helps solve actual customer problems.”
Why Ripple’s RLUSD Deal Made Sense
The deal gives the U.S. blockchain company a direct route into one of the continent’s largest payments networks. It intensifies competition for control of Africa’s fast-growing cross-border payments market.
The agreement also reflects a broader shift in how money moves across Africa. Cross-border transactions remain among the world’s most expensive. Fees often exceed 8%, and settlement can take several days. For African businesses receiving international payments and for the diaspora sending money home, those delays and costs have long slowed economic activity.
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Ripple says stablecoins can solve that problem. Since launching RLUSD in December 2024, the stablecoin has grown fast and topped $1 billion in market cap within a year. The blockchain company, valued at about $50 billion, says its payment network has cut remittance costs by up to 70% in some corridors by replacing multiple intermediary banks with blockchain settlement.
Furthermore, the partnership ranks among Africa’s biggest stablecoin infrastructure plays to date. Consumers and crypto traders have adopted stablecoins to hedge against currency volatility. But large-scale integration into mainstream payment systems has lagged. Flutterwave’s adoption of RLUSD changes that. It brings stablecoin settlement into a payments network that businesses, merchants, and financial institutions already use across the continent.
A Partnership Taking Shape Inside a Supervised Framework
What makes this announcement significant, compared to a standard fintech partnership, is the involvement of Nigeria’s Central Bank. On March 31, 2026, weeks before this announcement, the Central Bank of Nigeria launched an Anti-Money Laundering Supervision Pilot for a select group of Virtual Asset Service Providers. Six companies made the first phase: cNGN, KuCoin, KoinKoin, Juicyway, Flutterwave, and Paystack.
Four of those names are crypto native platforms. The other two are Nigeria’s dominant payment companies, which, until recently, operated under switching and payment-processing licenses unrelated to virtual assets. The CBN has reclassified them. The pilot provides the CBN with a controlled view of how these entities handle virtual asset risks, what their transaction-level business models look like, and where the gaps are.
That matters for the Ripple Flutterwave partnership. The deal is not happening in a regulatory vacuum. It is unfolding inside a supervised framework, with the CBN monitoring the model in real time.
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Earlier this year, Flutterwave acquired African banking startup Mono for its API technology. In October 2025, the company also launched stablecoin solutions for businesses with Polygon Labs.
The companies say the tools allow transactions to bypass traditional banking systems for a faster, more stable, and cheaper way to send money. With this latest deal, Ripple will give Flutterwave the infrastructure to expand its digital asset offerings.
Main Image: Flutterwave’s founder, Olugbenga Agboola. Image Credit: TechPoint
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