After Announcing That It Was Closing Down In February – Disha Has Now Been Acquired By Flutterwave
Of course, the closure announcement was a big shock to everyone since Disha had reportedly bootstrapped to more than 20,000 users and had claimed to have a monthly growth rate of about 100 percent.
No one expected this would happen, but as with most startups – resources are a significant problem, and a lack of them can mean great companies fall through the gap.
The Nigeria-based platform allows digital creators to curate, sell digital content, create portfolios, and receive payments from their audience globally.
This is a $100 billion economy.
But things got even more strange because three days after its announcement – the company, founded by Evans Akanno, Rufus Oyemade, and Blessing Abeng back in 2019, said it was thinking of new options for the company and would share an update once it made a recent decision.
So – it wasn’t closing down after all.
Months later, they’ve now revealed what’s going on.
Flutterwave, an African-based fintech company, has acquired Disha, and two of its founders have left to pursue other ventures.
This is excellent news for Disha.
Flutterwave is a firm that provides a payment infrastructure for global merchants and payment service providers across the continent.
The move will – of course – 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.
“Recently, we have diversified into building tools that will help freelancers, businesses, and now creators grow,” Flutterwave CEO Olugbengba Agboola said in an email to TechCrunch.
“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.”
The reasons for Disha wanting to close down? Resources. As expected.
“We [the founders] decided to shut down the company because we ran out of resources to continue driving the very valid vision we had,” ex-CTO Oyemade told TechCrunch in an email.
“With Flutterwave, we now have a way to drive both values for creators and revenue to sustain the business. We are happy to have gotten the call from Flutterwave, which actually kept hopes alive.”
Oyemade will continue to lead the technology behind the product with a new role as software and architectural lead. Akanno and Abeng, the ex-CMO, left the company to pursue other projects, according to TechCrunch.
