Flutterwave has secured a strategic investment from Ripple as part of its Series E fundraising round, which values the African payments company at US$3.2 billion.
The deal aims to reduce the settlement delays typically associated with cross-border transfers in Africa by integrating Ripple’s US dollar-pegged stablecoin, RLUSD, into Flutterwave’s existing infrastructure.
The partnership involves three main technical integrations.
Flutterwave will embed RLUSD as a primary settlement asset for high-volume transactions across its payment rails and its Send App remittance corridors.
The company will also leverage the XRP Ledger for faster clearing. It will deploy a unified API to bridge its domestic network with Ripple Payments.
By combining local payment methods, including mobile wallets, bank transfers, and cards, with blockchain settlement, the companies expect to help mitigate the wide foreign exchange margins.
These margins have historically complicated cross-border commerce on the continent.
The integration is designed to offer businesses predictable pricing and real-time settlement.
“Flutterwave has built one of the most advanced payments networks in Africa, and as its infrastructure evolves, stablecoins are becoming central to that story,”
said Reece Merrick, Managing Director, MEA at Ripple.
“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.”
Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, Founder and CEO of Flutterwave, said the capital injection will allow the company to scale its infrastructure.
He added that it will also enable the company to expand its stablecoin capabilities.
“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,”
Agboola said.
To date, Flutterwave has raised more than US$500 million and processed over a billion transactions valued at more than US$50 billion.
Featured image credit: Edited by Fintech News UAE, based on image by isaac1112 via Magnific
