PlentyWaka burst onto the scene in 2019 as a Nigeria bus hailing start-up and they have grown in leaps and bounds since then. Latest on the list of good news that the brand enjoys is an acceptance into the TechStars Toronto accelerator programme which means that they have also earned a cool $120,000 in extra seed funding to better their product.

The mode of operation of the start-up is to allow customers to book bus rides in real time across the states where they are present in.

Starting from Lagos, the start-up secured an extra $300,000 funding to expand to the federal capital territory and a handful of other states too. Now, they will be able to strengthen their position in the states where they are present and expand to other areas where they were not already in.

It should be noted that Onyeka Akumah, the current CEO and co-founder of PlentyWaka, is also the founder of Farmcrowdy from which CrowdyVest spun off. Thus, this makes it the second time a start-up that he is invested in will go through a TechStars accelerator programme.

Besides the seed funding that they have received, the accelerator program will also make it easy for them to get mentorship from top players in the industry while also getting visible to more investors.

This is a good week for payments processors everywhere.

While Flutterwave has achieved a unicorn status in the market, South African Adumo has also raised a $15 million funding in its latest round.

For those that are not familiar, Adumo is a local payment start-up that hopes to help small and medium scale enterprises get better at handing electronic payments within the country. They have also worked with multinational brands to ensure seamless remittances from clients both home and abroad.

This latest funding was provided by the IFC which is a member of the World Bank Group. We expect that the capital injection will help Adumo expand to more than the 14 African countries where it now has a presence while also boosting the quality of its services across board.

In exchange for the funding, the IFC gets the same amount worth of preferred shares from the company.

The fact that the growth of the IFC’s investment is tied to the growth of the start-up means that they will also do all they can to ensure the payments processor only gets better.

As we emerge from the pandemic and business starts moving again, it is sure that more and more vendors, retailers and manufacturers would have more need for the services of Adumo.

Paystack might have made the news first on the back of its $200 million exit but that news is now eclipsed by another amazing one in the same space.

As of the time of this writing, Flutterwave has secured an additional $170M funding through a series C round. That is impressive, but not as impressive as the $1bn valuation that the company now boasts in the market.

A little background into Flutterwave shows that they are the company that processes a lot of payments across multiple African countries. In fact, their financial sheets show that they have processed about $9 billion in transactions so far, lending credence to the legitimacy of the business model.

The most interesting thing in this niche is how the brand is worth more than majority of Nigerian banks. At this valuation, they are also the first payment start-up in the country to achieve unicorn status – an unofficial badge given to companies that have crossed the $1bn mark.

There is stull more to do for Flutterwave as more ecommerce providers open up in the African space. Likewise, they are yet to expand to all African countries so some potential remains there. With an increase in purchase within and outside the continent too, we cannot wait to see where this business climbs to in the nearest future.