(Bloomberg) -- Flutterwave Inc., an Africa and emerging markets-focused payments firm, more than tripled its valuation in less than a year to over $3 billion following its latest fundraising. 

B Capital Group led the $250 million round, with participation from Alta Park Capital LP, Whale Rock Capital and Lux Capital, Flutterwave said in an emailed statement on Wednesday. The investment has enabled the company to become the “highest valued” African startup, it said.

Flutterwave’s round comes amid increasing interest in Africa as investors target a young and tech-savvy population that’s quickly adopting online financial transactions. Last year, Africa-focused startups raised a record $5 billion.

The announcement confirmed a Bloomberg News report in October on the company’s funding plans. Flutterwave reached a $1 billion valuation in last March after raising $170 million in a round led by Avenir Growth Capital and Tiger Global Management.

Founded in Nigeria in 2016, Flutterwave facilitates cross-border transactions in multiple currencies for companies, including Uber Technologies Inc., Booking.com and Alibaba’s Alipay. It has processed transactions valued at more than $16 billion in dozens of African countries, and has expanded beyond payments products to an online marketplace as well as lending to small businesses.

Flutterwave’s co-founder and chief executive officer, Olugbenga Agboola, is a Nigerian software engineer who’s been involved in finance and technology for more than a decade. He contributed to the development of solutions at companies including PayPal.

“We set out to build a platform that simplifies payments for everyone and today, our solutions are used across the globe to connect Africans to the world and the world to Africans,” Agboola said in the statement.

The San Francisco-based company, with operations from the Nigerian commercial hub of Lagos to Kenya’s capital Nairobi, will use the proceeds to expand through mergers and acquisitions and seek out new customers in existing markets, it said.

 

(Updates with comment from chief executive in penultimate paragraph)

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