From startups to giants: how Flutterwave is supporting over 1 million businesses

Written by

mhmod

in

at

Flutterwave is a fintech company that provides a payment infrastructure for global merchants and payment service providers. Its key products and services include:

  • Grow: Assists companies in registering and incorporating businesses in the US, UK, and Nigeria by handling paperwork and applying for company registration on behalf of their customers.
  • Embedded Financial Services: Enables users to build apps with built-in fintech services such as KYC, account opening, debit cards, payments, account servicing, and compliance.
  • Swap: Launched in September 2023, Swap provides customers with access to foreign currency at competitive exchange rates.

Flutterwave targets three distinct customer profiles: enterprises, SMEs, and individuals. As of January 2024, it is used by over 1 million businesses, including large enterprises like Uber, Microsoft, AWS, Visa, PayPal, and Booking.com.

Early Stage Growth Strategies

In its early stages, Flutterwave employed several growth strategies:

  1. Marketing to Attract Initial Users: Marketing fueled Flutterwave’s product-led growth by generating marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) to attract initial users into viral loops.
  2. Sales Engagement with Promising Leads: Sales teams received product-qualified lead (PQL) signals to engage with promising users. They also reached out to MQLs to attract initial users.
  3. Customer Success Playbooks: Customer success teams received playbook tasks to onboard new users who encountered challenges with certain features. They also acted on incoming PQL churn risk signals and worked to revive declining paying customers.
  4. Partnerships with Leading African and International Companies: To provide financial services in Africa, Flutterwave partnered with companies like PayPal, MTN, 9PSB, and Airtel Africa. These partnerships expanded access to the African economy by enabling SMBs to engage in digital payments.
  5. Riding the Wave of Fintech Adoption in Africa: As fintech penetration continued to grow in Africa, Flutterwave capitalized on this trend. Africa’s large unbanked population, now coming online, presented an ongoing opportunity for Flutterwave.

By employing these strategies, Flutterwave has grown to become one of the fastest-growing payments companies in the world, processing close to $2 billion in payments and 25 million transactions across over 33 African countries.

More posts