Is Flutterwave’s IPO Dead? CEO Doubles Down On Pumping The Brakes

“My immediate goal is not to go public,” declared Olugbenga Agboola, Co-Founder/CEO of Africa’s highest-valued startup Flutterwave, on a recent episode of The Startup Leap podcast. It’s a resolute statement that not only departs from the prevailing narrative that touted an imminent Initial Public Offering (IPO) but also conveys a renewed focus on sustainable growth.

“Once I’m cash positive, which is the goal I have right now, then I can have all the options available to me,” Agboola said, in line with recent reports that indicate Flutterwave would only list once it reached profitability, a sentiment the CEO has now re-echoed.

Indeed, optimising for profitability and sustainability has become the dominant sentiment in African tech over the past year amid a shakeup in the venture capital markets, although African startups raised USD 2.07 B in 2024; a modest 4.5% uptick from 2023, per WeeTracker’s recently released African Venture Capital Report 2024, albeit with a worrying slump in early-stage funding (from 31% in 2021 to just 9% in 2024).

With the struggles of African ventures, such as Jumia and Swvl, in the global public markets a well-documented ordeal, a solid financial position would be crucial to thriving in the public markets, living up to its private valuation of USD 3 B, and securing returns for investors, if Flutterwave does eventually go ahead with the IPO.

On the podcast co-hosted by investors Maria Rotilu of Openseed VC and Yvonne Bajela of LocalGlobe, the conversation with Agboola unfolded as a candid exploration of Flutterwave’s journey, one marked by ambition, resilience, and a pursuit of solving Africa’s unique payment challenges.

Flutterwave processes online payments, enabling businesses to receive money from consumers and businesses operating in Africa. It currently operates in at least 35 African countries, counting Uber as a flagship client on the continent. The startup also boasts a remittance product, SendApp, for which it acquired 30+ new licenses in the U.S. last year in an expansion push.

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Reflecting on the early days, Agboola admitted, “Going back in time, we did not know we would be here today, to be very honest. We were just thinking about doing what we love to do. We wanted to make a product that people would like to use.”

His career, which began with stints at PayPal and several banks, had shown him firsthand the fragmented state of payments in Africa; a continent that, contrary to perceptions, boasts advanced payment systems in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, among others.

“Africa gets a bad rep for not being advanced, but we have one of the most advanced continents in payments” he noted, emphasising that systems like NIBBS in Nigeria and M-PESA in Kenya have long set the standard in fintech. 

For Agboola, the challenge was clear: create interoperability among these diverse systems so that a business in Accra could seamlessly receive payments from a customer in Lagos without the needless detour through New York. The decision to build Flutterwave, he explained, came when he “couldn’t solve it in a bank.” 

Supported by former employers in the banking sector—whose offices proudly still bear the marks of his early career—and bolstered by a network of talented co-founders like Adeleke Adekoya and Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Agboola’s entrepreneurial spark ignited a company that would go on to solve a continent-wide problem.

“We built this company on the back of our network and relationships,” he recalled, highlighting how the support from past employers turned into strategic partnerships that propelled Flutterwave’s growth.

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As the conversation segued to the rigorous process of scaling a regulated product across multiple markets, Agboola was refreshingly blunt about the hurdles faced.

“It’s why we have battle scars—figuratively, mentally, emotionally,” said Agboola, who noted this was only his second podcast — He isn’t known to make many media appearances.

“We thought the problem was technology. It wasn’t. It was actually a trust business. Technology is just a trust enabler. It was a trust business. Payments is a trust business and people need to trust you,” Agboola emphasised.

“Banks need to trust you to use their rails. Merchants need to trust you to give you their business. It’s not like SaaS where it’s software; it’s different, even though we use software to enable payments. But it’s really a trust business, and we learned that both the good and the hard way,” he added.

Each licensing process, whether it was in Nigeria with its switching, payment, and remittance licenses, or in the US with its multiple separate state licenses, was a test of perseverance. “There was one license that we applied for like five times,” he recounted, explaining how he’d even planned for rejection, ready to reapply the very next day.

Yet, despite these setbacks, Flutterwave now considers itself the most licensed non-bank entity in Africa.

“It’s a privilege, frankly. A license is a privilege. You don’t pay for it. You apply, you go through a process, they find you worthy, and then they give it to you. And applying, getting granted, maintaining the licenses, those are the things that we have to do to build trust.” Agboola said.

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The podcast also captured Agboola’s reflections on pitching a vision that seemed almost too audacious at the time.

“The issues we have in Africa are the opportunities in Africa as well. I spent time in China in 2018, part of the eFounders program that Alibaba Group organised, and I saw firsthand how entrepreneurs solve problems to help a country grow and scale. They solved the commerce-payment intersection and that leapfrogged China massively. That’s what we need to do in Africa also,” he said.

Investors once questioned whether Africa could leapfrog inadequacies into a prosperous future, but Agboola’s response was both pragmatic and inspiring:

“We need African entrepreneurs to solve African problems. You have to bring the African nuances to the table and then use that to build. You have to let people understand the opportunity here and the realistic ROI that you can get, and also the problems that we’re solving for,” Agboola advised.

This ethos of “African ingenuity, global excellence” has not only attracted investors who understand the local context but has also paved the way for a reimagined approach to entrepreneurship, one that values profitability and steady growth over chasing unicorn status.

“I don’t think people should chase the billion-dollar company. We would do a lot better if we have a million 20-million-dollar companies; that will make a massive difference in Africa,” Agboola opined.

“America is like that; the country of entrepreneurs and small businesses because they have so many small businesses who are in their own small niche, state or city, employing people doing really well.”

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Since launching in 2016, Flutterwave has processed more than 630 million transactions valued at USD 31 B for nearly a million clients. It has also raised around half a billion dollars in multiple funding rounds, with one in January 2022 tripling the company’s valuation.

Despite its impressive growth, Flutterwave has not been without controversy. The company has faced legal challenges in Kenya, where authorities froze millions in assets amid money laundering charges that were later dropped, and in Nigeria, it has faced internal controversies and endured losses from security breaches and other operational setbacks.

Leadership shakeups, including the exit of former CFO Oneal Bhambani and COO Bode Abifarin, once fueled unease, sparking widespread speculation about the company’s fate, especially as talks of going public on the NASDAQ had been a recurring theme in global and local media since news first broke in 2022. Agboola had also reiterated just last April that “Right now our goal is to be IPO-ready, ensuring we have the right corporate governance in place, making sure we are operating well.”

However, recent executive hires from global giants such as Citi, PayPal, and Visa, coupled with Agboola’s recent change of tone and strategic moves to enhance regulatory compliance, signal a blended strategy; a departure from that earlier rush for public listing towards a renewed focus on creating a robust, profitable enterprise, while an IPO remains a possibility further down the road.

“Our ambition is really one: to grow revenue, grow our margins, make our OPEX make sense, and be cash positive,” Agboola asserted, noting that the option to go public remains on the table—but only when the company’s financial foundation is indisputably sound. Flutterwave’s IPO buzz has raised hopes for African tech, promising big returns for investors and a boost for the ecosystem, but the wait seems far from over.

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When asked about the pace of product innovation, Agboola highlighted how Flutterwave continues to evolve responsibly. “We’re shipping with scale in mind,” he noted, citing the maturity of SendApp and the robustness of their APIs.

Such efforts have enabled the company to not only support local businesses across Africa but also to expand into the U.S. market, where acquiring money transfer licenses in multiple states has further strengthened its global foothold.

Throughout the interview, Agboola’s passion for solving problems shone through. Whether it was recounting the inspirational role of his traditional African upbringing, where family and relatives constantly pushed him to go one better, or expressing pride in the impact Flutterwave has made—including helping alumni of the company launch careers at Google, American Express, Netflix Meta, and more—his narrative spoke to perseverance.

Even as he acknowledged that challenges are inevitable, his advice to budding entrepreneurs was simple yet profound: “Stay true to your goals, stay true to your north star, and keep going. Things will go wrong, but that’s part of the journey.”

Looking forward, Agboola envisions an African payments landscape that continues to evolve with innovations like contactless transactions, open banking, and tokenised account payments. Despite the numerous obstacles, his optimism is rooted in the belief that every setback is an opportunity to build a better, more resilient solution.