An investigative probe has just thrown the popular payment services platform Flutterwave into turmoil. Africa’s most valuable startup, born in Nigeria, estimated at more than $3 billion, is now caught up in alleged setbacks.
According to West Africa Weekly journalists, Olugbenga Agboola allegedly committed various offenses involving fraud, insider trading and inappropriate behavior with female collaborators. These suspicions do not date from yesterday and come to put the finger on a case which would also involve the American regulators.
On the podium, 2 nuggets raised +$100m: @instadeepai & @theflutterwave
Flutterwave, a payment fintech launched in Nigeria, has become the highest valued startup in Africa
– Hadrien Augusto (@HadrienAugusto) February 27, 2022
The pans of the first African startup
The African media promises to publish all the evidence in its possession to shed light on the biggest startup on the continent. His journalists claimed that Olugbenga Agboola and his partner, Adeleke Adekoya, abused their positions “to use Access Bank assets for the benefit of Flutterwave”says one of the authors of the survey.
The two would maintain close ties with the Nigerien bank in which they had a strategic position. They would have taken advantage of it to serve their own interest, a behavior falling within the scope of insider trading and this since the creation of Flutterwave in 2016. Because its headquarters is in California, it is with the policeman of the American financial markets, the SEC, that the team should have been held accountable.
But on the subject of a 2018 summons, versions differ between the SEC and Flutterwave associates. One wonders why the American organization has never communicated regarding this affair for several years.
The pans of fintech Flutterwave would be nothing without the addition of suspicions of fraud around the compensation in shares offered by Flutterwave to its employees. According to the work of journalists and feedback from the Mastercard provider, fraudulent transactions took place and some employees never received the amount they were supposed to.
Finally, the journalists of the African media reiterated their suspicions of inappropriate behavior by the CEO of Flutterwave with certain collaborators. In 2019, a campaign by an anonymous activist pointed the finger at him, accusing him of having repeatedly abused his position to “sleep with many women at Flutterwave”.
A graph, to better realize ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/qOzikexBca
– Hadrien Augusto (@HadrienAugusto) February 27, 2022
Unfortunately, Flutterwave had the image of the model and powerhouse startup on the continent. It also enabled the ecosystem to achieve a record over the first 7 weeks of the year: that of reaching billion dollars invested in venture capital. Never had Africa won over shareholders so much. The year 2022 promises to be even more impressive. Local startups are expected to raise more than $7.3 billion.
