Flutterwave, Africa’s largest fintech company, has acquired Nigerian open banking startup Mono in an all-stock deal worth between $25 million and $40 million, marking one of the most significant infrastructure-focused deals in Africa’s fintech space in recent years.
The acquisition brings together two major companies at the core of Africa’s digital financial ecosystem. Flutterwave operates one of the most extensive payment networks on the African continent, supporting domestic and cross-border transactions in over 30 African countries. Meanwhile, Mono has built an open banking API that allows businesses to access banking data, initiate payments, and verify customers.
Often referred to as “Africa’s Plaid,” Mono has raised approximately $17.5 million from investors including Tiger Global, General Catalyst, and Target Global. The deal allowed all investors to get at least a return on their capital, with some early backers seeing returns of up to 20 times their initial investments, according to people familiar with the transaction. The company will continue to operate as an independent product under Flutterwave.
Founded in 2020, Mono addresses long-standing gaps in Africa’s financial systems, where access to standardized banking data remains limited and credit bureaus are often underdeveloped. Its API allows users to consent to the sharing of their banking information, allowing lenders and financial institutions to analyze income patterns, spending behavior, and repayment capacity, a feature that is at the heart of digital lending and small business lending.
Mono CEO Abdulhamid Hassan said almost all digital lenders in Nigeria depend on the company’s infrastructure. Mono says it has powered more than 8 million bank account linkages covering approximately 12% of Nigeria’s banking population, provided more than 100 billion financial data points to lending platforms, and processed millions of direct bank payment transactions. Customers include Moniepoint and PalmPay.
For Flutterwave, this acquisition strengthens its commitment to deeper financial infrastructure beyond payments. By integrating Mono’s data and verification capabilities, the company can now offer onboarding, identity verification, bank account verification, data-driven risk assessments, and one-time or recurring bank payments within a single platform. Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga “GB” Agboola described the deal as a strategic bet on the next phase of fintech growth on the continent, noting that payments, data and trust need to work together rather than existing in silos.
Hassan said the agreement reflects a broader shift towards credit-led financial inclusion across Africa, driven by government policies and increased demand for financing by individuals and small and medium-sized businesses. He noted that for a credit-driven economy to function effectively, lenders need detailed and reliable data on how people earn and spend, while regulators need to be confident that their customers’ funds and data are safe, especially in markets like Nigeria where the open banking framework is still in its infancy.
By joining Flutterwave, Mono will have access to a pan-African footprint with established licensing, enterprise customers, and compliance systems, positioning it to scale quickly as regulatory clarity across the market arises. The companies said the combination will expand financial access for companies operating across borders while maintaining strong security and compliance standards.
The deal mirrors previous efforts to consolidate global fintech infrastructure, such as Visa’s thwarted acquisition of Plaid in 2020, and highlights the strategic value of combining data infrastructure and payments rails. Although Flutterwave and Mono are both backed by Tiger Global, Hassan said investors did not drive the deal, which instead grew out of a long-standing product partnership between the two companies.
The acquisition also reflects a broader shift in African fintech. As funding conditions tighten and competition intensifies, startups that once aimed to scale independently are increasingly finding stronger results by integrating into larger, more established platforms. For MSMEs and digital lenders, the deal signals a future where payments, data and credit infrastructure are more closely linked, potentially improving access to finance, reducing friction and supporting business growth across the continent.
