Flutterwave, one of Africa’s largest payments companies, has announced the acquisition of Nigerian open banking startup Mono in a multi-million-dollar fintech exit. The acquisition, finalized in December 2025 and recently made public, was structured as an all-stock deal. While specific financial terms were not disclosed, Mono CEO Abdulhamid Hassan confirmed the deal's value significantly surpasses the $17.5 million Mono had raised since its inception. This acquisition represents a notable liquidity event for Mono's backers, including Ventures Platform, Voltron Capital, and Ingressive Capital, during a period when startup exits remain relatively infrequent across Africa.

Founded in 2019 and backed by Y Combinator, Mono rapidly established itself as a prominent player in Nigeria’s open banking sector. Often likened to "Africa's Plaid," Mono developed robust APIs that empower businesses to securely access users’ bank data and facilitate direct payments from bank accounts. Its clientele spans a diverse range of fintechs, lenders, and various digital platforms, showcasing the breadth of its impact on financial data access and transaction initiation. Mono also expanded its product offerings by launching Mono Prove, an AI-powered identity verification solution.

For Flutterwave, this strategic acquisition aligns with its overarching goal to enhance the foundational infrastructure supporting its payment services. By integrating Mono’s advanced data and account access capabilities, Flutterwave gains direct entry into the open banking layer. This segment is increasingly crucial for critical financial operations such as credit scoring, lending assessments, and efficient account-to-account payments. Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, Flutterwave CEO, articulated that the acquisition would enable the company to "build more inclusive financial products" by improving the way businesses interact with and utilize financial data. Abdul Hassan, Mono’s co-founder and CEO, echoed this sentiment, describing the deal as a logical progression given the growing convergence of open banking and payment solutions.

Post-acquisition, Mono is slated to maintain its operations as a standalone product under the Flutterwave umbrella. Existing customers are assured continued access to Mono’s APIs, while Flutterwave intends to progressively integrate Mono’s technological stack into its broader payments infrastructure. This move is indicative of a wider trend observed within the African fintech landscape, where established entities acquire specialized infrastructure startups to expand their capabilities and fortify their market positions, as seen in deals like Rivevest's acquisition of Hisa and Moniepoint's acquisition of Kopo Kopo.

Looking ahead, Mono is preparing to launch a sophisticated treasury management platform for African businesses in 2026, leveraging the robust infrastructure it has already developed. This tool will enable enterprises to consolidate and manage all their bank balances efficiently from a single interface. Hassan highlighted that this treasury management platform is among several new enterprise solutions Mono aims to introduce, capitalizing on its extensive experience in connecting financial institutions with customer data. Mono has successfully linked approximately eight million bank accounts, representing about 12% of Nigeria's total bank accounts, providing it with valuable data insights to drive new product development with user consent. Hassan also emphasized that Mono's ambition for open banking to become a more significant part of Africa’s financial infrastructure necessitated Flutterwave’s extensive scale and 35+ country licenses. Despite the Central Bank of Nigeria yet to fully approve open banking’s widespread launch, Hassan remains optimistic, drawing parallels to the transformative impact of early payment rails on fintech innovations like PiggyVest and Cowrywise.