Flutterwave eyes 2026 profitability, leans into stablecoins

Flutterwave’s chief executive says the African fintech unicorn is edging toward profitability after a year of tighter costs and a sharper focus on margins across its operations.

In an interview with Bloomberg Television on Dec. 19, Olugbenga “GB” Agboola said Flutterwave has pushed for better economics and capital discipline across its enterprise, small business and consumer products. He said activity on the company’s Asia corridor has jumped, with enterprise business up about 50% and margins nearly doubling. Agboola said some lines are already profitable and he expects the full group to get there in 2026.

Flutterwave is best known as payment infrastructure. Its software helps merchants and larger companies accept payments and send payouts across African markets, often through a single set of application programming interfaces. The company says it can process transactions in many payment methods and 150 currencies and has reach in more than 34 African countries. Consumer products sit alongside the business tools, including Send, a remittance service for moving money to and from Africa.

Stablecoins are now moving from buzzword to business plan. Agboola told Bloomberg that Flutterwave is building what he called the biggest stablecoin deployment in Africa, aiming to give businesses and consumers access to stablecoin wallets. He said merchants who import goods from China and other markets want faster settlement than traditional rails can offer. Flutterwave has also said a stablecoin pilot will start with select enterprise customers in 2025, with a broader rollout planned for 2026.

That pivot comes after years of fundraising that helped turn Flutterwave into a unicorn. Reuters reported in 2020 that the company raised $35 million and struck partnerships with Visa and Worldpay as it pushed into new markets. In 2021, Flutterwave said total investment had reached $225 million. A year later, it announced a $250 million Series D that valued the company at more than $3 billion, taking disclosed funding to at least $475 million.

Founded in 2016, Flutterwave has pitched itself as a bridge between Africa’s fragmented payment systems and global commerce. The company has said it processed more than 200 million transactions worth over $16 billion and served more than 900,000 businesses, including global brands such as Uber and Booking.com.

Agboola said Flutterwave is not actively hunting another funding round, arguing that profit brings independence. He described an eventual IPO as a milestone, not a deadline, while the company focuses on building trust with customers, partners and regulators.