Flutterwave plans to acquire British fintech Railsr

African payments giant, Flutterwave, is considering the acquisition of British fintech Railsr, according to a Sky News report.

The UK-based fintech formerly known as Railsbank was founded in 2016 by Nigel Verdon and Clive Mitchell. Railsr, a provider of banking-as-a-service and embedded finance software, is currently facing being sold amid new layoffs and allegations its last funding round came in materially lower than originally reported.

Flutterwave is said to be one of the potential buyers and is in competition with a consortium of comprising a number of existing Railsr investors.

Reports state that the company faced an acute cash flow issue in the second half of 2022 despite a reported $46m Series C funding round announced last October.

Railsr has been working with bankers at FT Partners on a range of strategic options including an outright sale for several months.

This would be a big step for Flutterwave if it is successful in its bid as this would be in line with the company’s ambitious expansion plan to accelerate customer acquisition in existing markets and growth through mergers and acquisitions. In 2022, Flutterwave co-led a British a UK based fintech platform, Dapio’s $3.4million raise on the back of its $250 million Series D funding, valuing Flutterwave at over $3 billion.

According to Olugbenga Agboola on the Dapio investment, he said “We want to change our focus from just Africa to emerging markets and eventually the U.S., the U.K., Europe. Our goal is to ensure that our infrastructure powers those corridors.”