🐦 Investigative Journalist on Ripple's $3B partner Flutterwave: "Its founders have been lying. ABOUT EVERYTHING" \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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🐦 Investigative Journalist on Ripple's $3B partner Flutterwave: "Its founders have been lying. ABOUT EVERYTHING"twitter.com/DavidHundeyin/status/1513854790337548295

82 sats \ 21 comments \ @KenyaCoin 12 Apr 2022 bitcoin

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20 sats \ 1 reply \ @TheBTCManual 13 Apr 2022

This company always gave me theranos vibes, I am based in South Africa, and I've worked with Nigerians and Nigerian tech companies, like Konga, Jumo which are big ecommerce brands there and I know the work that went into it,

Then in 2018 all of a sudden this FW shows up becomes the biggest unicorn startup out of no where, I had my doubts but never looked into it, looks like my spidey senses are on point

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @247bf84fda 25 Aug freebie

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20 sats \ 1 reply \ @avg 13 Apr 2022

That sounds bad. I would be interested in what their business looks like. Is it healthy besides the issues mentioned or another Wirecard?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @247bf84fda 25 Aug freebie

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0 sats \ 15 replies \ @KenyaCoin OP 12 Apr 2022

The article was published on Substack:

Flutterwave: The African Unicorn Built On Quicksand https://westafricaweekly.substack.com/p/flutterwave-the-african-unicorn-built https://archive.ph/oghuv

0 sats \ 13 replies \ @KenyaCoin OP 12 Apr 2022

Flutterwave is "partner" with a number of financial and cryptocurrency organizations, from Ripple, Binance, VISA, AliPay, WorldPay FIS, PayPal, and others.

Ripple, since 2018:

https://flutterwave.com/gb/blog/fitting-ripple-blockchain-into-flutterwaves-core-infrastructure-for-africa-payments

0 sats \ 11 replies \ @KenyaCoin OP 12 Apr 2022

Less than two months ago Flutterwave closed a funding round that valued the company at over $4 billion USD.

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 fund-raising.

The San Francisco-based company, with operations from the Nigerian commercial hub of Lagos to Kenya’s capital Nairobi, will continue to grow in East Africa. It will also expand presence in Francophone African nations such as Senegal and Cameroon, said Agboola.

“We’re also thinking beyond Africa,” Agboola said, referring to plans for Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and the Middle East.

Flutterwave is now Africa’s most valuable startup https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/2/16/flutterwave-is-now-africas-most-valuable-startup

0 sats \ 9 replies \ @KenyaCoin OP 13 Apr 2022

From the WestAfricaWeekly article:

The SEC’s response, which came a few days later, declined to grant me access to the records in question citing an exemption under Section 7C.

https://i.imgur.com/H2LuIEe.png

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Since exemption 7C was mentioned 3 times in the FOIA request rejection, I looked it up and this was what I found.

[Exemption 7C ... to constitute an unwarranted invasion of a third party/parties (in some instances by revealing an investigative interest in them).]

Whether this means that the SEC currently has an open investigation on Flutterwave, only the Commission itself can answer. I did however, submit an appeal, so we wait and see.

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @KenyaCoin OP 13 Apr 2022

Not directly a part of this story, but on social media over the past several years there have been literally thousands and thousands of individuals with a complaint similar to this:

@DavidHundeyin article on flutterwave just cemented what I already knew. Those guys have my 300k [naira] that I tried to use to buy usdt on binance 1 year before the government banned crypto transactions. The transaction failed and they refused to refund my money till today.

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @KenyaCoin OP 13 Apr 2022

Quartz Africa article:

Agboola is alleged to have created a phantom ‘co-founder’ identity to give himself more shares in the company’s early days, and offered share prices below the company’s valuation to employees who wanted to cash in on their vested options. These employee stock sales, the story alleged, went to an investment vehicle Agboola controlled.

The company now faces public scrutiny on multiple issues from this week’s exposé, including a supposed ethics investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018 (Flutterwave is incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in California). The SEC neither confirmed nor denied the investigation citing privacy provisions. Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, the former Flutterwave co-founder, said there was one but disputed the Substack journalist’s characterization.

Flutterwave’s CEO is under scrutiny over allegations of financial misconduct https://qz.com/africa/2154134/flutterwave-and-its-ceo-under-fire-for-alleged-dubious-practices/

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @KenyaCoin OP 13 Apr 2022

BREAKING: Fiat intermediary behaving badly! News at 11!

Of course, ... this news with Flutterwave is just noise.

Flutterwave extends the Caviar Club card networks, or as Jack Mallers also described them: The "wazzzap" boomer networks.

On bitcoin's Lightning Network: "Its a totally open, independent, distributed network standard that just makes for better payments."

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @KenyaCoin OP 13 Apr 2022

As more records from the SEC and other American regulators become available, it has also emerged that in November 2021, Flutterwave was forced to pay a $47,043.80 fine to the Texas Department of Banking for running an unlicensed money transmission operation in the state of Texas.

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