Flutterwave Pushes For Profits Amid Financial Pressures Stalling IPO
Flutterwave’s CEO, Olugbenga Agboola, opens his mid-2025 letter reviewing the company’s H1 performance with two words that leave little room for ambiguity: “profitability and sustainability.”
That choice feels intentional. With its much-anticipated IPO hopes seemingly on hold—or at least under consideration—the Nigerian-founded payments giant is steering hard towards financial discipline, hoping to validate its lofty valuation in a public market that demands more than hype.
Over the past two years, Flutterwave has touted growth in everything from transaction volumes to licensing reach. The company has processed over 890 million transactions valued at some USD 34 B, serving more than a million businesses across Africa and beyond. It powers payments for global merchants such as Uber, Microsoft and Wise, and processes over 500,000 payments daily, using a range of methods from cards to mobile money.
Yet, this scale belies deeper tensions. Sources in analyst circles suggest that Flutterwave’s annual revenue hovers near USD 100 M, and to justify its USD 3 B valuation—in the public eye or private secondary markets—it needs to lift that number considerably. A 2023 secondary transaction reportedly pegged Flutterwave’s value closer to USD 1.6 B, roughly half of the 2022 Series D valuation.
That gap also extends to investor confidence. One analyst, who spoke to WT on condition of anonymity, reckons that merely growing payment volume isn’t enough if underlying revenue multiples lag peers like dLocal, which hit USD 746 M in revenue last year. dLocal, founded in 2016, became Uruguay’s first unicorn and went public in New York five years later at a USD 9.5 B valuation, now down to about USD 4 B.
And while Flutterwave raised USD 250 M at a USD 3 B valuation in early 2022—making it Africa’s most valuable startup—fundraising has since slowed to trickles, such as a quiet USD 5 M in secondary activity last year, insiders reveal.
***
Founder and CEO Agboola’s letter emphasises the ongoing shift. “We’re not chasing vanity metrics. We’re building a company that outlasts the hype… proof that we’re executing on a long-term plan.”
Agboola highlights milestones aimed at hardening the company’s fundamentals: 20 new U.S. money transmitter licenses, regulatory approvals across multiple African countries, expansion of Send App remittance corridors, and the launch of Pay with Bank Transfer in Ghana, where Total Payments Volume(TPV) jumped nearly 2x year-on-year and Ghana’s transaction value surged 47x in H1 2025.
Enterprise commerce is also a focus. Flutterwave’s East Asian merchant volume is approaching USD 1 B processed value, while corridors like Turkey and Kuwait are showing strong momentum; TPV in Kuwait rose by over 112% year-on-year.
But tough questions remain. Corporate moves like dual-listing on Nigeria’s NGX and NASDAQ are reportedly in the works, but critics ask whether NGX provides enough depth or liquidity to support a billion-dollar fintech listing. A string of exits in its top brass has also raised eyebrows.
Meanwhile, Flutterwave has weathered scandals, including allegations of leadership misconduct, frozen Kenyan funds over money laundering allegations (later dismissed, and reported hacks and frauds totalling millions, none of which have fully disappeared from public discourse.
Still, Agboola maintains that Flutterwave is on firmer footing. “By June 2025, our monthly margin had doubled compared to our 2024 average… We completed our first-ever group audit and consolidated financials,” he emphasises, highlighting commitments to transparency and lean operations.
Flutterwave dominates payment rails and has attracted global attention—including TIME100 recognition—but it now faces the test that awaits every pre-IPO African tech business; that is, whether it can transform headline growth into credible profitability.
