Ripple Acquires Stake in Nigerian Fintech Flutterwave Valuing Company at $3.2bn
Flutterwave has secured a strategic investment from Ripple as part of its Series E fundraising round, in a deal that values the African payments giant at $3.2 billion and signals a decisive shift towards stablecoin-first payment infrastructure across the continent.
The partnership centres on embedding Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin into Flutterwave’s payment rails and Send App remittance corridors, with transactions cleared over the XRP Ledger (XRPL) and a unified API bridging Flutterwave’s domestic network with Ripple Payments’ global network.
The integration is framed as the culmination of a multi-year infrastructure roadmap at Flutterwave, one that has progressively incorporated stablecoin-powered settlement, liquidity, and remittance capabilities. With RLUSD now embedded at the core, the company says it has finalised a unified liquidity stack designed to eliminate longstanding frictions in African cross-border payments, including multi-day settlement delays and high foreign exchange margins.
Businesses on the network will gain access to guaranteed liquidity, predictable pricing, and real-time settlement through a single stack that merges local payment methods, cards, mobile wallets, and bank transfers, with enterprise blockchain infrastructure.
Reece Merrick, Managing Director for Middle East and Africa at Ripple, said the investment is intended to establish RLUSD within Flutterwave’s infrastructure and deepen its role as a settlement layer for real-world payments across the continent.
“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 said.
Flutterwave Founder and CEO Olugbenga “GB” Agboola described the deal as a catalyst for African sovereignty in the digital financial age. “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,” he said.
Flutterwave has raised over $500 million to date and processed more than one billion transactions worth in excess of $50 billion. The company says the fresh capital will accelerate efforts to bridge traditional financial systems with digital asset infrastructure, with a particular focus on unlocking economic opportunity for SMEs and enterprises operating across Africa.
Nigeria is positioned centrally in the company’s strategy, with Flutterwave describing the country as the primary hub for global digital asset trade on the continent.
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