Flutterwave expands its portfolio with acquisition of content creation platform, Disha

As part of its expansion strategy, Flutterwave, the leading pan-African payments technology company has acquired Disha.

Disha is a Nigerian platform that empowers makers and creators with tools and templates to showcase their work, grow and receive payments worldwide.

The new acquisition leaves Disha as an autonomous brand but its users can earn value for their digital content using Flutterwave’s payouts and collections solution.

This deal is important for Disha as the startup announced earlier this year that it was about to close its business. It is also the first official acquisition announcement from Flutterwave after many speculations. The amount of the acquisition however remains undisclosed.

Speaking on the purchase, Flutterwave CEO, Olugbenga Agboola said it was an opportunity for the company to capture a new market as well as a means to establish Flutterwave as a growth partner.

“We saw Disha as an opportunity to capture a new market of indie creators that need innovative tools to showcase their craft and get paid. This acquisition cements our place as a growth partner for freelancers and businesses. For us, Flutterwave Store is to small businesses what Disha is to creators.”

Flutterwave CEO, Olugbenga Agboola

Disha

Disha was founded in 2019 by Evans Akanno, Rufus Oyemade and Blessing Abeng. Disha targets creators and influencers globally by providing them with tools to create a one-page site to curate and share links, content, portfolios and a checkout system to receive payments.

Before the acquisition, Disha had about 20,000 users and claimed to have a monthly growth rate of about 100%. However, with its global reach, revenue was very low and the startup struggled. Running out of resources, the startup decided to shut down and two co-founders, Akanno and Abeng exited the startup to pursue other endeavours.

Rufus Oyemade, in his new role as software and architectural lead, expressed happiness at the acquisition.

“With Flutterwave, we now have a way to drive both value for creators and revenue to sustain the business. We are happy to have gotten the call from Flutterwave, which actually kept hopes alive.”

The Flutterwave acquisition will bolster Disha’s payments checkout process and grow the platform’s base by allowing users to make transactions in over 150 currencies and 34 countries worldwide.

Now, Disha wants to focus on features and integrations that help creators easily schedule meetings and exhibitions, build sustainable income through subscriptions and leverage emerging technologies in the creator space.

Flutterwave’s expansion strategy

Flutterwave is a Nigerian cross-border payments platform that attained unicorn status this year. Since then, it has embarked on a series of partnerships and collaborations. One of such is the collaboration with PayPal that allows PayPal customers to pay African merchants using Flutterwave.

The Disha acquisition is also a means to enter a different space. NFTs are the latest trends with over $10billion dollars spent in the market in the third quarter of 2020. Disha is well positioned to facilitate transactions around owning and selling these digital experiences since a lot of its users are based in U.S, U.K and Europe.

“Disha is a global tool and the global creator economy is enormous, and with NFTs growing in popularity, there’s no limit to how huge the creator economy can grow,”

Flutterwave CEO, Olugbenga Agboola

Now that you’re here, don’t forget to register to be a part of the largest crypto conference in Africa put together by Technext. Follow this link for registration and more info.