Flutterwave secures strategic investment from Ripple to power African stablecoin payments

Flutterwave, Africa’s leading payments infrastructure company, has secured a strategic investment from Ripple as part of a Series E funding round that supposedly values the company at $3.2 billion. The deal weaves Ripple’s enterprise blockchain network, its U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin RLUSD, and the XRP Ledger into Flutterwave’s existing payment rails, making it one of the more significant tie-ups yet between an African fintech and a global digital-asset infrastructure provider.

For Flutterwave, the investment extends a stablecoin strategy the company has been building for several years, layering settlement, liquidity, and remittance capabilities onto a network that already spans local cards, mobile wallets, and bank transfers across 34 African countries.

Company leaders describe the move as the basis of a “stablecoin-first” payment architecture meant to cut through the delays and costs that have long weighed on cross-border transactions in the region. The timing tracks with a broader shift across African markets, where businesses and individuals have leaned more on dollar-backed stablecoins as a hedge against local currency swings and a faster alternative to traditional bank wires.

How the Flutterwave-Ripple integration will work

The partnership is built around three main pieces. RLUSD will be embedded directly into Flutterwave’s payment rails and into Send App, its remittance product, where it is meant to act as a settlement asset for high-volume transfer corridors. The XRP Ledger will be used to clear transactions more quickly than conventional banking rails typically allow. And a unified API is intended to link Flutterwave’s domestic payments network directly with Ripple Payments, Ripple’s global payments system, so funds can move between local and international rails without manual handoffs along the way.

Together, the two companies say, these pieces are designed to replace the multi-day settlement delays and wide foreign-exchange margins that have historically come with African cross-border payments with steadier liquidity, more predictable pricing, and settlement that approaches real time.

Reece Merrick, Ripple’s managing director for the Middle East and Africa, described the investment as a way of anchoring RLUSD inside Flutterwave’s infrastructure, with Flutterwave expected to drive stablecoin volume across the XRP Ledger while taking on a bigger role as a settlement layer for everyday payments on the continent. He added that the two companies also plan to bring Ripple’s payments network to cross-border transactions in the region.

Reece Merrick, Ripple’s managing director for the Middle East and Africa

Flutterwave founder and chief executive Olugbenga “GB” Agboola said the investment gives the company room to scale its infrastructure and broaden its stablecoin roadmap, framing the deal as a way of connecting African commerce more directly with the global economy.

Flutterwave has raised more than $500 million to date and says it has processed over a billion transactions worth upwards of $50 billion for clients that include Uber, Air Peace, Bamboo, and PiggyVest, with infrastructure reaching 34 African countries. Ripple, founded in 2012, builds blockchain-based enterprise tools spanning payments, custody, liquidity, and treasury management, with RLUSD and the cryptocurrency XRP underpinning much of that business. The company has spent recent years pushing further into stablecoin-based settlement as banks and payment firms look for alternatives to traditional correspondent banking.

Flutterwave Founder/CEO, GB Agboola

Flutterwave has signalled that Ripple’s investment is only one piece of its broader Series E round, with additional strategic announcements tied to the raise expected in the coming months. If the integration unfolds as planned, it would give Flutterwave one of the more developed stablecoin settlement networks among African payment companies at a moment when interest in dollar-backed stablecoins is climbing sharply across the continent.

Meanwhile, the deal cements Flutterwave’s position as a bridge between Africa’s fast-growing digital economy and the wider push by global crypto infrastructure firms to make stablecoins a routine part of everyday cross-border commerce.