Flutterwave Inc. Chief Executive Officer Olugbenga Agboola has said its acquisition of open-banking startup Mono Technologies Nigeria Ltd. will support its drive toward profitability and strengthen its positioning for a potential initial public offering (IPO).
The Lagos- and San Francisco-based payments company, Africa’s most valuable fintech unicorn, has partnered with Mono since 2021. While the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, Flutterwave confirmed that Mono’s technology will play a critical role in its long-term growth strategy.
Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg, Agboola said the acquisition reflects Flutterwave’s renewed focus on building resilient infrastructure and improving margins rather than pursuing rapid expansion.
“Right now, our focus is profitability, resilience and better infrastructure, and that is why we acquired Mono,” Agboola said, adding that the deal makes Flutterwave “a better candidate for everything,” including a future IPO.
Flutterwave IPO Plans
Flutterwave had announced plans to list on the Nasdaq in 2022 but later delayed and eventually paused the move to address internal challenges and prioritize sustainable growth.
Before the acquisition, Flutterwave paid Mono on a per-transaction basis for account-to-account payment services. Agboola said owning Mono outright would significantly reduce these costs, lifting profit margins on those processes to at least 10%.
Mono has become a key player in Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem, enabling businesses to securely access customer financial data for credit assessments, faster onboarding, fraud reduction, and seamless payments. Agboola said the technology would also allow Flutterwave to tap into broader payment opportunities arising from Nigeria’s ongoing banking sector recapitalisation, which could accelerate lending, trade, and e-commerce activity.
Flutterwave currently operates in about 35 African countries, supports payments in more than 30 currencies, and processes roughly 500,000 transactions daily. The company was last valued at $3 billion following a funding round in January 2022.
Since its launch in 2016, Flutterwave has processed more than 630 million transactions worth over $31 billion. While the company has not provided a timeline for a potential listing, Agboola reiterated that any IPO would only happen once Flutterwave achieves sustained profitability, noting that strengthening its payments infrastructure through acquisitions like Mono could make a future listing easier to execute.
