𝗙𝗹𝘂𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘄𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗮 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗻, 𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲𝘀 $𝟭𝟳𝟬 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗯𝗶𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗔𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮’𝘀 𝗗𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗣𝗮𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗲

Flutterwave, an Africa-focused payment technology company, has raised $170 million in a Series C round, positioning itself to further connect and capitalize on the continent’s thriving yet highly fragmented digital payment landscape.

The round now values the company at more than $1 billion. It was led by the US-based investment firms Avenir Growth Capital and Tiger Global Management, with participation from new and existing investors including DST Global and Salesforce Ventures. The latest funding brings the total investment in the five-year-old company to $225 million.

Founded in 2016, Flutterwave helps businesses from around the world expand their operations in Africa and other emerging markets with a platform that enables cross-border transactions through one API. Businesses can use the platform to create customizable payment forms and collect that payment from customers and international businesses without having to sync with multiple payment systems. The San Francisco-based company already serves more than 290,000 businesses in Africa, including Uber, Facebook, and Booking.com.

“Flutterwave’s job is to be what we call ‘the center point’—the plumbing of African payments infrastructure,” Olugbenga Agboola, the company’s founder and CEO, told Quartz. For example, the company’s technology makes it “easy for a merchant in Lagos to receive payments from somebody in Nairobi, via M-Pesa,” Agboola said, “because Flutterwave has done the dirty work of building the plumbing of African payments, and connecting every payment type together.”