Three fintech companies with African roots have been named in this year’s TIME100 list, recognized among the world’s top 100 most influential companies in 2025.
These companies appear alongside global giants such as Alibaba, OpenAI, BlackRock, and SoftBank, in the annual list compiled by the American news magazine Time, which showcases the businesses and people who have had the greatest impact on the world that year across various fields, including politics, culture, science, and business.
Moniepoint, an online banking services provider from Nigeria, is recognized as the fastest-growing fintech in Africa, and the continent’s fourth fastest-growing company overall. Formerly known as TeamApt, Moniepoint focuses on expanding financial inclusion by supporting Nigeria’s 40 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), 90% of which operate in the informal economy.
The company claims over 10 million business and individuals customers, and says that it enables most of Nigeria’s point-of-sale (POS) transactions, with over 1 billion transactions monthly.
Moniepoint reached unicorn status in October 2024 following a US$110 million funding round.
The second African fintech startup featured in this year’s TIME100 is Flutterwave. Also founded in Nigeria, Flutterwave provides payment infrastructure for global merchants and payment service providers across Africa. The company claims to process over 500,000 payments daily, supporting more than 15 payment methods, including cards, bank accounts, mobile money, POS, and USSD. It says it serves over 1 million business customers, including Uber, Microsoft, Wise and Piggyvest.
Flutterwave has raised over US$475 million in funding, and is worth US$3 billion. This year, the company aims to reach profitability, and is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering (IPO).
Finally, the third Africa fintech company featured in the 2025 TIME100 is Tyme Group. Tyme Group is a digital banking group that designs and operates digital banks focused on emerging markets, including TymeBank in South Africa and GoTyme in the Philippines. The company deploys banking kiosks in retail stores instead of branches, aiming to provide simple, accessible, and affordable banking services to excluded demographics.
Tyme Group claims it serve about 17.5 million customers across South Africa and the Philippines, with most clients from low-income segments. Each month, the company says it adds 500,000 new customers.
Tyme Group is the fourth most valuable fintech startup in Africa with a valuation of US$1.5 billion. It reached unicorn status in December 2024 after securing US$250 million in a capital raise.
Tyme Group is headquartered in Singapore, with technology and product development hubs in Vietnam, India, and China.
Launched more than two decades ago, the TIME100 is the Time’s annual list of the most influential people in the world. This year, the list includes six members of the Trump Administration, as well as a record of 16 CEOs and nine leaders who are fighting for justice, equality, and democracy. Winners come from a total of 32 different countries, and represent a wide range of industries from gaming, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics, to fitness, beauty, and apparel.
In the fintech space, other notable companies featured alongside Moniepoint, Flutterwave, and the Tyme Group include:
- Coinbase, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange based in the US. Coinbase offers crypto trading, staking, storage services, in addition to crypto payments. The company reports US$328 billion in assets on its platform, and quarterly trading volumes of US$393 billion.
- Plaid, a data network based in the US. Plaid works with thousands of fintech companies like Venmo and SoFi, several of the Fortune 500, and many of the largest banks to make it easy for people to connect their financial accounts to the apps and services they want to use. Its network covers 12,000 financial institutions across the US, Canada, UK and Europe, and the company is valued at a staggering US$6.1 billion.
- GoFundMe, a community-powered fundraising platform. GoFundMe allows people and nonprofits to share their stories, connect with supporters, and reach their fundraising goals. Over the past 15 years, the company claims it has helped mobilize more than US$40 billion in funds from a global network of more than 200 million people.
- Fiserv, a global leader in payments and fintech. Fiserv provides solutions including account processing and digital banking; card issuer processing and network; payments; e-commerce; merchant acquiring and processing; and Clover, a smart POS system and business management platform. The company claims to touch nearly 100% of US households, and serve over six million merchant locations globally, including 10,000 financial institutions. It processes up to 25,000 transactions per second, and generates over US$20 billion in annual revenue.
Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Africa, based on image by Achmad Khoeron via Freepik
