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Olugbenga Agboola
CEO & Founder, Flutterwave

Nigeria's Tech Unicorn: Flutterwave's Path to Profitability

📅 Dec 21, 2025 Bloomberg Television 11 MIN 4679 VIEWS 22 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS
Africa's fintech sector has seen remarkable growth over the past decade. It's now a key pillar of the continent's tech economy, reshaping how people access and use financial services. Flutterwave is Africa's most valuable unicorn, valued at more than $3 billion. CEO Olugbenga Agboola says the company's focus remains on profitability and an eventual IPO would be just a milestone, not a destination. -------- More on Bloomberg Television and Markets Like this video? Subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss any videos from Bloomberg Markets & Finance: https://tinyurl.com/ysu5b8a...

Questions asked in this interview

10
  1. 0:53So then how close are you to profitability?
  2. 1:21You mentioned in the entire business?
  3. 1:32What is it that you're finding is successful in terms of growing and expanding the business?
  4. 3:52If really the backbone of your business was Fiat, is there a certain advantage that you're seeing using Stablecoins to grow parts of the business?
  5. 4:50What are your ambitions then for 2026?
  6. 5:46Or is it just continuing to build on some of the infrastructure you mentioned?
  7. 6:40Is it conducive enough for other sectors or is Fintech going to continue to dominate in your opinion?
  8. 8:03Where is Flutterwave at in fundraising?
  9. 9:01How far out do you think that potentially is?
  10. 10:03Do you worry that some of the other competitors, though, might maybe oust you in terms of being a dominant player on the continent?
Interviewer 0:00 ↗
You've stressed the importance of profitability, also a resilient and scalable business. Talk to us about what you have achieved this year and what your path to profitability looks like.
Olugbenga Agboola 0:12 ↗
So in the last couple of months, this year, actually we shifted our focus to think about how do we become more sustainable as a company? How do we get better value in economics? How do we get better capital allocation? And across all of our segments, enterprises, SMBs and consumer, we have basically gone very, very deep into this in the last couple of months. We have got an enterprise business in our Asia corridor, about 50% across the board. We've got a margin balance 100% in the period as well. We have also ensured that our discipline continues in 2026 as a company.
Interviewer 0:53 ↗
So then how close are you to profitability?
Olugbenga Agboola 0:56 ↗
We're pretty much there. We're still investing in the company and the business, but we're investing smartly and carefully. We know exactly why we're investing and we're unlocking new growth levers. But that said, the goal is profitability. We're thinking about our fundamentals, which is key for us. Being profitable gives us independence and builds resilience as we call it. So potentially 2026, we'll get to that goal.
Interviewer 1:21 ↗
You mentioned in the entire business?
Olugbenga Agboola 1:24 ↗
Yes. We already have some businesses that are already profitable, and the entire group business in 2026, yeah.
Interviewer 1:32 ↗
GB, can you speak about some of those new growth levers? Because Flutterwave is only one of a handful of unicorns across the African continent. What is it that you're finding is successful in terms of growing and expanding the business?
Olugbenga Agboola 1:44 ↗
So number one, we're thinking about how money moves on a continent. We're thinking about infrastructure and how it empowers our clients. The topography of my business really is enterprises, small businesses and consumers. How do we enable them? For example, Stablecoin, we're building the biggest stablecoin deployment ever done in Africa. We're showing every business, every consumer, stablecoin wallets. Let me explain why it's important. Think of a small business in Lagos, Nigeria, who is a big supplier in China or in the US, and the lead time to getting your supplies is maybe a week if you pay by regular payment methods. If they pay with Stablecoin with USDC, for example, your supplier gets the payments in real time. So we're seeing customer demand for how do I get my supplies faster. As a way to build that infrastructure for a consumer, it's remittances. It's moving money to family across the diaspora, and money movement happens with Stablecoin in seconds, unlike Fiat that takes you 2-3 days. So in Africa right now, that is key. So we're building the Stablecoin infrastructure that connects the Fiat world to the Stablecoin world. That's number one. Number two is we're also going very deep into our remittance products. We want to ensure that we are covering every corridor in Africa. The easiest way to move money in Africa should be through Flutterwave, whether you're a consumer, business, or enterprise. In the last year, for example, our enterprise business grew over 1,000% for our Asia corridor. And why did that happen? That was because we saw the trade routes across the continent. There are a lot of African SMBs and corporates that import from China or from Asia. We'll be that corridor, making payments simpler for them, and that's what we've done and is now helping our growth massively in 2025 and going forward.
Interviewer 3:52 ↗
Why focus on Stablecoins now, GB? If really the backbone of your business was Fiat, is there a certain advantage that you're seeing using Stablecoins to grow parts of the business?
Olugbenga Agboola 4:06 ↗
It's just in response to customer demand. Like I mentioned, we have clients today with a defensive strategy, to be very honest. We have customers today who want to pay a supplier, and that supplier says, look, if you pay me in Stablecoin, I get paid in real-time. Pay me with Fiat, it takes 2-5 days. So we have to respond to our customer demand. We're getting so many customers saying how do I quickly pay my clients? How do I quickly receive money? We also reduce the cost of remittances. How do you make it cheaper for a mom in America to send money back to family in Lagos or in Accra or in Nairobi or in Lusaka? So it's really customer response. We operate and expand based on our customer demand as a company.
Interviewer 4:50 ↗
What are your ambitions then for 2026?

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Cite this transcript

APA, MLA, BibTeX
APA

Agboola, O. (2025, December 21). Nigeria's Tech Unicorn: Flutterwave's Path to Profitability [Interview transcript]. Bloomberg Television. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/584136/

MLA

Olugbenga Agboola. "Nigeria's Tech Unicorn: Flutterwave's Path to Profitability." Bloomberg Television, 21 Dec. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/584136/.

BibTeX
@misc{agboola2025_584136,
  author       = {Olugbenga Agboola},
  title        = {Nigeria's Tech Unicorn: Flutterwave's Path to Profitability},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, Bloomberg Television. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2025},
  month        = {dec},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/584136/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}