Editor’s note: African-Startups is a sister publication of EU-Startups, bringing trusted coverage of startups, venture capital, and innovation across Africa.
Africa’s leading payments infrastructure company, Flutterwave, has secured a strategic investment from blockchain firm Ripple as part of its Series E funding round. The round values the Nigerian-founded FinTech firm at $3.2 billion.
The partnership will embed Ripple’s USD-denominated stablecoin, RLUSD, directly into Flutterwave’s payment infrastructure, creating what the company describes as a “stablecoin-native financial superhighway” connecting Africa to global markets.
While the financial terms of Ripple’s investment was not disclosed, the milestone underscores Flutterwave’s strengthening institutional position and sets the stage for further strategic announcements in the coming months. Ripple’s participation in Flutterwave’s Series E funding round is also a sign of a deep product alliance built around digital asset infrastructure.
“Flutterwave has built one of the most advanced payments networks in Africa, and as its infrastructure evolves, stablecoins are becoming central to that story. Our investment will establish RLUSD within that infrastructure, with Flutterwave driving stablecoin flows over the XRPL and deepening its role as a settlement layer for real-world payments across the continent,” said Reece Merrick, Managing Director, MEA at Ripple.
“Together we also plan to bring Ripple Payments’ speed and efficiency to cross-border transactions in the region, opening up faster, lower-cost financial services to businesses and consumers at scale,” he added.
At the heart of the partnership is a product integration spanning three areas: using RLUSD as the primary settlement asset across Flutterwave’s payment rails and Send App remittance corridors; deploying the XRP Ledger for faster transaction clearing; and connecting Flutterwave’s domestic network to Ripple Payments through a unified API. Together, these capabilities aim to replace multi-day settlement delays and unpredictable foreign exchange costs with real-time clearing, stable pricing, and guaranteed liquidity.
“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,” said Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, founder and CEO of Flutterwave.
The Ripple investment is the culmination of a deliberate, multi-year strategy by Flutterwave to build out stablecoin-powered settlement, liquidity, and remittance rails across the continent. With RLUSD now embedded into its core ecosystem, Flutterwave is effectively locking in a ‘stablecoin-first’ payment architecture designed to remove long-standing bottlenecks in African cross-border transactions.
The result is a scalable and compliant liquidity stack that reimagines how African enterprises access and participate in global markets, one that is both internationally connected and locally relevant.
Having raised over $500 million and processed more than a billion transactions worth over $50 billion, Flutterwave enters this next chapter from a position of considerable scale. The Ripple investment and product alliance add fresh momentum to that trajectory, with the company now focused on closing the gap between Africa’s traditional financial systems and the emerging stablecoin economy and ensuring the continent is not just a bystander to global financial transformation.
Earlier this year, in April, the company obtained a Nigerian banking licence. This license enables the company to hold funds and deposits directly, thereby enabling more efficient financial services and settlement flows for consumers, businesses and enterprises.
