One of Africa’s fintech unicorns, Flutterwave, has bought Nigerian open banking startup, Mono, in an undisclosed all-stock deal.
The acquisition allowed all Mono investors to at least recoup their capital, with some early backers realizing returns of up to 1,900 per cent.
It will bring together two of Africa’s leading fintech infrastructure companies and see Mono continue to operate as an independent product.
Flutterwave operates one of the continent’s widest payments networks, while Mono has built Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that allow businesses to access bank data, initiate payments, and verify customers.
Mono has raised about $17.5 million from investors, including Tiger Global, General Catalyst, and Target Global.
Founded in 2020, Mono uses APIs that allow users to consent to sharing their bank information, enabling financial institutions to analyze income, spending patterns, and repayment capacity.
Mono was launched to ease access to bank data across African markets, where credit bureaus remain limited and fintechs, especially lenders, often rely on customers’ bank transaction histories to assess creditworthiness.
The company claims to have powered more than 8 million bank account linkages, covering roughly 12 per cent of Nigeria’s banked population. It also claims to have delivered 100 billion financial data points to lending companies and processed millions in direct bank payments.
According to the chief executive of Mono, Mr Abdulhamid Hassan, nearly all Nigerian digital lenders now rely on Mono’s infrastructure.
For Flutterwave, which powers local and cross-border payments across more than 30 African countries, the deal deepens its vertical integration. In addition to payments, the company can now offer onboarding and identity checks, bank account verification, data-driven risk assessment, and one-time or recurring bank payments within a single stack.
Flutterwave CEO, Mr Olugbenga Agboola framed the acquisition as a bet on Africa’s next phase of fintech growth.
“Payments, data, and trust cannot exist in silos,” he said. “Open banking provides the connective tissue, and Mono has built critical infrastructure in this space.”
“If the economy is going to be credit-driven, you need deep data intelligence to know how people earn and spend,” Hassan said. “But at the same time, for open banking to really work, regulators need to be confident that customer funds are safe,” Mr Hassan told TechCrunch.
The Mono acquisition will see it tap into Flutterwave’s vast footprint as it already operates across dozens of African markets, with local licenses, enterprise customers, and compliance teams in place.
“This allows us to expand what’s possible for businesses operating across African markets while staying grounded in security, compliance, and local relevance,” Mr Agboola said.