This makes the payment company the most valuable African startup. Also, Nvidia reports record growth and Doordash shares climb 30 percent.
Olugbenga Agboola – CEO of Flutterwave.
Flutterwave
Good Morning! While you slept, work continued elsewhere in the digital scene.
The top topics:
African fintech Flutterwave has raised $250 million in a Series D round. The start-up from Nigeria has thus tripled its valuation to over three billion dollars within a year. The round was led by US-based B Capital Group. Flutterwave is now the highest rated African startup. It tops the $2 billion valuation of Softbank-backed fintech Opay and FTX-backed payments platform Chipper Cash.
Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola said the surge of funds flowing into African startups shows that "people are realizing now that Africa is the continent of the next billion." He was referring to the population least connected with the Internet is connected. The fintech facilitates corporate cross-border payment transactions via a single API. His international clients include Booking.com, Flywire and Uber. [More at Financial Times and Techcrunch]
On Gründerszene you can read today: Dagmar Wöhrl has had a varied career. The Franconian was already a lawyer, entrepreneur, CSU member of the Bundestag, state secretary, mother, Miss Germany, model and is now also a successful investor in the television show "Die Höhle der Löwen." She told us in an interview what her life looked like before her success . [More at start-up scene]
And here are the other headlines of the night:
Nvidia has seen strong growth thanks to high chip demand. Revenue rose 53 percent to $7.6 billion in the fourth fiscal quarter. The bottom line is that the profit of three billion dollars was even more than twice as high as in the same quarter of the previous year. For the current quarter, Nvidia announced a further increase in sales to $8.1 billion. However, earnings are being hit by a $1.36 billion payment after the failed purchase of chip designer Arm. This is the advance that the arm owner Softbank is allowed to keep. [More at Wall Street Journal and Handelsblatt]
Doordash shares are up as much as 32 percent after the company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings. Doordash saw strong order numbers, indicating demand for meal delivery services remains high. Doordash reported quarterly revenue of $1.3 billion versus an expected $1.28 billion. The company has been one of the big winners in the stay-at-home trend during the pandemic and using food delivery services instead of going out to restaurants. [More at CNBC and The Information]
Shopify also released its earnings results on Wednesday. The Canadian e-commerce company forecast sales to fall in the first half of 2022 as the online shopping spurt from the Covid-19 pandemic cools. Shares then plunged more than 18 percent to end the day down 16 percent. For the fourth quarter, Shopify reported revenue of $1.38 billion, which beat estimates of $1.34 billion. Adjusted earnings per share were $1.36, beating Wall Street's expectations of $1.27 per share. [More at CNBC]
After Apple's push, Google now also wants to give its users more options for data protection. The Android developer announced measures to strengthen privacy protection on Wednesday. These are to be developed in the coming years. The focus on privacy practices could help Google stay ahead of regulatory issues at a time when lawmakers and consumers are concerned about personal data. Google said it will work closely with regulators. [More at Handelsblatt and CNBC]
Other investments: Genesis, which has developed a low-code/no-code application platform specifically for the financial markets, has raised $200 million. The panel was chaired by Tiger Global Management. Genesis has a total of 50 customers and is used by thousands of developers. Spotter, a two-year-old startup that acquires rights to YouTubers' video catalogs, has raised $200 million in Series D funding from Softbank Vision Fund 2. The startup is now valued at $1.7 billion. Spotter said it plans to invest a grand total of $1 billion in YouTube creators by mid-2023. [More at Techcrunch and Techcrunch]
Our reading tip on Gründerszene: The Corona pandemic hit the Berlin travel startup Tourlane hard. Now one of the two founders has left. We show you the new management team, with which Tourlane wants to grow strongly again. [More at Gründerszene+]
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A nice Thursday!
Your start-up scene editorial team
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