Leading pan-African payments technology company, Flutterwave, announced that it has acquired Disha, a Nigerian content creation platform that allows digital creators to curate, sell digital content, create portfolios and receive payments from their audience globally.
The deal is important for Disha as it pulls the company out of the deep. In February, it announced that it was shutting down its business, due to a lack of revenue and resources. Although Disha had users globally, its revenues were low, making slightly above $1,000 in monthly recurring revenue. Running out of resources, the startup decided to shut down, with two out of three of its Co-founders —Evans Akanno and Blessing Abeng—leaving the startup to pursue other endeavours.
Three days after announcing its closing, however, Disha did an about-face and said that it was thinking of new options for the company and would share an update once it made a new decision. The acquisition is the first official acquisition announcement from Flutterwave after much speculation, and the amount of the acquisition remains undisclosed.
Commenting on the deal, Flutterwave’s Chief Executive Officer, Olugbenga Agboola, said that 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,” he said.
With the acquisition, Flutterwave is also aiming to enter the trending NFT space, which recorded over $10billion dollars spent in the market in the third quarter of 2020. With most of Disha’s customers based in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe, it is well-positioned to facilitate transactions around owning and selling these digital experiences. “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,” said Olugbenga Agboola.
Rufus Oyemade, the last-standing member of the team, will continue to lead the company in his new role as software and architectural lead. He expressed excitement over the acquisition, saying; “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.”
According to Flutterwave, Disha will continue to be an independent product with a distinct brand and operations. Disha will use Flutterwave’s know-how to bolster its payments checkout process and grow its platform’s base by allowing users to make transactions in over 150 currencies and 34 countries worldwide
From now on, Disha will 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.
