In an exclusive interview with TechCabal, Ross Haider, chief sales officer at Flutterwave, explained the company’s highest revenue-generating segment.
Over the last few years, Flutterwave has doubled down on consumer payment services with new products such as Send App and Swap. However, in a chat with TechCabal, the company’s chief sales officer, Ross Haider, said that enterprise services remain the most significant revenue driver for Flutterwave. “Based on our internal numbers, enterprise probably leads the way, and consumer is catching up. So it won’t be unfair to say that probably by the middle of 2024, both will be driving similar numbers,” Haider said.
Flutterwave was founded in 2016 by Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola and Iyin Aboyeji to provide payment solutions to African merchants and everyday consumers. The business has scaled to several countries and supports other companies, including MTN and ride-hailing company Uber. But the company has attempted to go big in consumer payments. It launched Barter as a super app offering everything from airtime recharges to international remittances. But the product has struggled since it launched despite Flutterwave’s best efforts.
In 2021, Flutterwave introduced Send, an international payments app that debuted with a notable partnership with Grammy-award-winning artist Wizkid. Over the last six months, and thanks to recent reforms by the Nigerian government, Flutterwave is reporting faster adoption on Send, its CEO told TechCabal.
As listed on its website, Flutterwave offers a range of payment products for individuals, startups, and businesses. Under the Enterprise segment, its offerings include helping companies to accept online payments, cross-border payouts in different currencies, point-of-sale devices, virtual cards for business expenses, no-collateral loans, and recently Swap, a new product digitises the process of getting foreign exchange for Nigerians with the backing of Nigeria’s Central Bank. For the consumer segment, products include the remittance platform Send App, Afritickets; an end-to-end event ticketing platform that powers concerts, festivals, fashion shows, and other lifestyle needs; Swap, and Tuition, a product that allows African students to pay their international school fees in their local currencies.
Flutterwave’s plan to float an initial public offering (IPO) has been in the works since last year but was delayed by the company’s regulatory troubles in Kenya. In August, Bloomberg reported that the fintech is still pressing ahead with the plan, though its CEO Agboola admitted that “the markets aren’t great right now,” a telltale sign that the listing could be slowed down. “When it is time, we will let you know for sure. Currently, we focus on customers, revenue, experience, and digital market expansion,” Agboola told TechCabal at an event in September.
Haider said going public won’t affect the company’s sales and growth. “I don’t have any timeline on when or how the IPO would look, but I can tell you that from a growth perspective, we have seen tremendous growth within the organization. It [the IPO] doesn’t impact our sales operations in any way,” he told TechCabal.
Editor’s note: an earlier version of this story referred to Send App as a payments app, it has now been corrected to a remittance platform. Also, Flutterwave’s event ticketing platform has been included.
