Flutterwave, the third African unicorn in fintech attained this status after the payment services it received in its Series C funding of $170 million. In March 2021, Flutterwave broke the internet as the first African fintech company to hit the $1 billion valuation mark.
Also in 2020, fintech recorded $35 million in its Series B funding. These achievements were recorded under the leadership of the co-founder and CEO of the payments company.
Flutterwave is now ahead of many startups in Africa such as Jumia, Fawry, as it is valued at over $3 billion in its current state. These feats can be attributed to the creative imagination of the founder Olugbenga Agboola and his partner.
Flutterwave was founded and co-founded in 2016 by the Tech-savvy Olugbenga Agboola and Iyin Aboyeji, another Tech-smart Nigerian leading Andela, a global job placement for software developers.
The 37-year old was born in Lagos Nigeria, is a graduate of the MBA program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management, Cambridge. He had his childhood education in Nigeria before travelling out of Nigeria to the United State of America. He has acquired several degrees from reputable institutions and he also learned skills in Development Tools, Ethical Hacking, JavaScript, PHP, PHP Applications, product Innovation and many other related skills.
Gbenga is not only a financial technology engineer, he is also a certified ethical hacker, certified security analyst, and Microsoft certified system engineer. Prior to his creation, he had worked at various Tech companies where he garnered experience. He worked as an application engineer at PayPal, a Google Product Manager at Google Wallet, an Application Developer at British Telecom, and many others.
He was also the Head of Mobile Financial Services at Sterling Bank, and the Head of Digital Factory and Innovation at Access Bank. He was part of the Management Programme at the Wharton School in 2015.
Not to mention his services as the Senior Entrepreneur in Residence at Africa Fintech, Foundry, as an entrepreneur at Royal Bank of Scotland Business.
He founded Flutterwave to build an Africa-wide payments infrastructure to connect all payment types in the continent and bring a single-use payment solution to any merchant or small business owner.
Basically, the creation allows business owners to accept payments from customers without having to worry about compliance requirements, infrastructure technology, or having to deal with several payment providers.
With its headquarters in San Francisco, it also has a presence in the United Kingdom and other countries across Africa and Europe.
Gbenga has also been recognized in and across Africa, one of which he was listed as one of the Quartz Africa Innovators 2019, in recognition of his input in the fintech world.