For many startups focused on building their brands and differentiators, a few things confer credibility quickly: its board, investors, executive team, fund-raise and valuations, and, to some extent, office space.

Nigeria’s technology sector has grown exponentially in recent years, and nothing exemplifies this growth more than the speed with which companies like Flutterwave hit major landmarks.

For context, Flutterwave’s pre-exit valuation of over $1 billion makes the five-year-old company more valuable than all but a couple of Nigeria’s most prominent and oldest banks. Over the past decade, Nigerian startups have gotten increasingly bigger pieces of the venture capital pie, with $600 million received from the over $1 billion that came to Africa in 2019.

Read more on these platforms: Vanguard, and TechEconomy.