Flutterwave, the billion-dollar Nigerian fintech company, has been recognised as a Pioneer in the first-ever list of the TIME100 most influential companies in the world.
Founded in 2016 by Olugbenga Agboola and Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Flutterwave was recently valued at over a billion dollars after raising $170 million series C funding from a leading group of international investors to expand its customer base in existing and international markets and to develop new products.
To assemble the list, TIME solicited nominations across every sector—including health care, entertainment, transportation, technology and more—from its global network of editors and correspondents, as well as from industry experts. Each company was then evaluated on key factors, including relevance, impact, innovation, leadership, ambition and success.
The inaugural list features 64 companies headquartered in the United States: Home Depot, Mastercard, Nike, Mattel, Twitter, Johnson & Johnson, Epic Games, Rothy’s, AT&T, FedEx, Clubhouse, Airbnb, GoFundMe, Lime, Robinhood, Tesla, and more. 18 companies on the list are headquartered in Europe: English Premier League Equinor, Maersk, Volkswagen, Adidas, Lego, Farfetch, Stripe, Oatly, Unilever and more.
Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, CVS, Walgreens, and Illumina are among the companies on the list that are playing a critical role in COVID-19 prevention, vaccine creation, and the vaccine rollout process. Major tech companies—including Microsoft, Samsung, Huawei, Apple, Tencent, Nintendo, Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, Zoom and more—are included on the list.
Several companies are in the financial technology industry, including Nubank, Alibaba, Mastercard, Robinhood, Stripe, Flutterwave and more. Some—such as Digital Currency Group and Coinbase—specialize in digital currency.
The entertainment industry is also represented on the list by a range of businesses, including Netflix, Spotify, TikTok, HYBE, and Disney. The most recently founded company is Clubhouse, which was created in spring of 2020.
On the first-ever TIME100 Companies list, Dan Macsai, editorial director of the TIME100, says: “We’re excited to evolve our TIME100 franchise to explore and interrogate the influence of companies, particularly at a moment when so many of them are shaping our collective future.”
On Friday, April 30th, TIME will host key leaders from companies featured on the inaugural TIME100 Most Influential Companies list for a special installment of TIME100 Talks, the virtual series that convenes leaders from every field to spotlight solutions and encourage action toward a better world.
Presented by Volkswagen, the event will feature conversations with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Spotify CCO Dawn Ostroff, MSNBC Anchor and NBC News Senior Business Correspondent Stephanie Ruhle, Strava co-founder Michael Horvath, Gro Intelligence CEO Sara Menker and more.
