Flutterwave Inc. has said its acquisition of open-banking startup Mono Technologies Nigeria Ltd. is a strategic move to boost profitability, strengthen core infrastructure and position the company for a potential initial public offering (IPO).
The disclosure was made by Flutterwave’s Chief Executive Officer, Olugbenga Agboola, following the purchase of Mono, a fintech firm the payments giant has partnered with since 2021. While the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, Flutterwave confirmed that Mono’s technology will be central to its long-term growth strategy.
The acquisition signals a renewed strategic shift by Africa’s most valuable fintech unicorn towards operational efficiency and sustainable growth, as it prioritises resilience and cost optimisation over rapid expansion ahead of any future market listing.
Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg, Agboola said the company’s immediate focus is profitability and infrastructure development, rather than aggressive geographic growth.
“Right now, our focus is profitability, resilience and better infrastructure, and that is why we acquired Mono,” he said, noting that the deal makes Flutterwave “a better candidate for everything,” including a possible IPO.
Flutterwave had announced plans in 2022 to list on the Nasdaq but later deferred and eventually paused the process as it worked to resolve internal challenges and build a more sustainable business model.
Founded in 2016, the Lagos- and San Francisco-based payments company currently operates in about 35 African countries, supports payments in more than 30 currencies and processes an average of 500,000 transactions daily, according to company data. It was last valued at $3 billion after a funding round in January 2022 that tripled its valuation.
Before the acquisition, Flutterwave paid Mono on a per-transaction basis for account-to-account payment services. Agboola said acquiring the company outright would significantly reduce these costs, lifting profit margins on those processes to at least 10 per cent.
Mono has emerged as a key player in Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem, providing open-banking infrastructure that enables businesses to securely access customer financial data for credit scoring, faster onboarding, fraud prevention and seamless payments.
Agboola added that Mono’s technology would also help Flutterwave capitalise on wider payment opportunities expected to arise from the ongoing recapitalisation of Nigeria’s banking sector, a development that could spur lending, trade and e-commerce activities.
Last year, Agboola reiterated that Flutterwave’s long-anticipated IPO would only proceed once the company achieves sustained profitability. Although no timeline has been set for a potential listing, he suggested that strengthening the company’s payments “rail” across Nigeria and Africa through strategic acquisitions such as Mono would make any future IPO easier to execute.
Since its launch, Flutterwave has processed more than 630 million transactions valued at over $31 billion, underscoring its growing footprint across the continent despite the delay in its public listing plans.
