According to Bloomberg, Chipper Cash, an African-focused fintech startup backed by Silicon Valley Bank and cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is considering several possibilities, such as exploring a sale or looking for new investors.
According to the news outlet quoting reliable sources, the corporation started thinking about the alternatives before SVB’s collapse last week. The report says Chipper Cash may decide against any option, they noted, and that no final decisions have been made on the matter.
chipper cash
In November 2021, Chipper Cash, which processes cross-border payments for customers, announced a $150 million Series C expansion round led by FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange platform created by Sam Bankman-Fried. The investment came only six months after it received a $100 million Series C funding from SVB Capital, Silicon Valley Bank Financial Group’s corporate venture capital arm.
Both the FTX and SVB Financial Group have now declared bankruptcy, thus ending their several years of business. And, of course, liquidating their assets, which include investments in tech startups such as Chipper Cash, although the startup has since denied substantial exposure to the bank’s current crisis.
Chipper Cash, founded in 2018, offers free, interoperable payments in and across various African nations, most notably Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Rwanda, and Nigeria; however the firm also has operations outside of Africa, including the United Kingdom.
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert. As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard
This past week has been one of the most chaotic and unraveling for the US technology and startup community. In the wake of both Silvergate Bank and Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) being shut down within a few days of each other, I wanted to come out and share a few thoughts. The most important of which is to clearly state that fortunately Chipper Cash has had overall insignificant exposure to both these events.
chipper cash
Given the scale and complexity of our global operations, Chipper Cash maintains multiple banking relationships across the world — including multiple within the United States. As such, we had a very limited amount of money (only about $1M) held in our SVB account at the time the bank was taken over by the California regulator. We have already received confirmation from the FDIC that we can expect about half the funds back by Monday March 13th 2023. Furthermore, there was absolutely no impact on our customer operations around the world.
I also wanted to talk about the fact SVB was one of our many investors, and led our Series C round in 2021. This is a fact I am very proud of. SVB has been the most important banking partner to the entire Silicon Valley ecosystem; and for us at Chipper they have been incredible partners as investors. A little known fact is that 5 years ago when I was trying to open Chipper’s first bank account, SVB was the only bank that would accept us. I know there are countless other startups all doing very important work who would say the same thing. Therefore, it is quite sad to see such a pillar of our ecosystem brought to its knees.
However, it is important to clarify what SVB being an investor actually meant for us at Chipper, especially during a time like this. From a financial perspective, it doesn’t really change anything. SVB made their investment in Chipper in 2021 and we received those funds as soon as that round closed. What is happening now doesn’t change that. Additionally, SVB wasn’t the only investor in that round — we had several other new and existing investors participate in the $100m round — and SVB owns a very small part of Chipper ~2%. Chipper is very fortunate to have a very broad and supportive investor base that has supported us from our earliest days and continues to do so today.
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We are definitely living through a very tough and uncertain time not just in our entire industry, but across the entire global economy. The events of this week have only further highlighted this fact, and every business is having to make difficult but necessary adjustments. I speak constantly with other CEOs who are all having to navigate their companies through these uncertain times. For us at Chipper, we have our work cut out for us and we continue working hard everyday towards our mission to enable people in Africa to move and interact with their money freely.
It is probably most important, that in times like these, we all remember that this is a marathon and not a sprint. When Maijid and I set out on this journey over 4 years ago we knew that it would ebb and flow, and that there would be several headwinds and false starts along the way. This too shall pass. There is so much more to be done and we couldn’t be more excited about that.
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert. As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard
At a time when Nigeria is still undecided about allowing local startups to run platforms that enable local investors to invest in foreign stocks, the Capital Markets Authority of Uganda has licensed African payments company Chipper Cash to run one such platform. The startup has, accordingly, also launched a product to that effect.
Chipper’s Global Stocks Investing product allows Ugandans (both young and elderly) to invest in publicly traded global firms including as Facebook, Amazon, Tesla, Netflix, and others. Chipper Cash is Uganda’s first company to offer fractional stock ownership. The new kid on the block, fractional shares, are critical for making stock investing easier and more accessible, especially for African countries with lower-valued currencies.
“Today, we’re launching a revolutionary product, U.S. fractional stocks,” said Ham Serunjogi, CO-founder and CEO of Chipper Cash. “This product is probably our most impactful product since the launch of the original Chipper app just three years ago.”
“For the first time ever, Ugandans of all economic backgrounds will be able to invest as little as $1 or 3,500 Uganda Shillings in the world’s largest public companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange — when we talk about unlocking global opportunities, this what we mean. As a proud Ugandan, it means so much to me that we get to launch a product that will empower my fellow countrymen and women,” he said.
Here Is What You Need To Know
Chipper Cash, in collaboration with DriveWealth LLC, a pioneer in fractional investing and embedded finance, enables the average Ugandan to generate long-term wealth by providing safe and affordable access to the US stock markets.
Investing in US equities previously required large minimums and was exclusively available to high-net-worth individuals. This effectively priced first-time investors out of the market.
Chipper Cash allows users to invest in over 6,000 U.S. equities and ETFs on a dollar equivalent basis (i.e. fractional shares) with minimal or no minimum requirements.
“Wealth creation is one of the most powerful ways of driving economic and social development in any country. For too long, many tools that offer the ability to generate and store wealth have remained inaccessible for too many, for too long. This product, the Chipper fractional stocks product, fixes precisely that problem,” says Ham.
A Look At What Chipper Cash Does
Founded in 2018 by Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled, (two college students brought together by their academic adventures at Grinnell College, Iowa, USA) Chipper Cash provides free, interoperable payments in and between Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Rwanda, and Nigeria.
It accomplishes this by allowing customers to link their mobile money accounts (regardless of provider) to Chipper and make P2P transfers via its simple smartphone application.
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions. He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance. He is also an award-winning write
Chipper Cash, an African cross-border payments firm, has raised $150 million in a Series C expansion round headed by FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange platform founded by Sam Bankman-Fried. The investment comes just six months after Chipper Cash secured a $100 million Series C financing funded by SVB Capital, SVB Financial Group’s corporate venture capital arm. SVB Capital, as well as other previous investors such as Deciens Capital, Ribbit Capital, Bezos Expeditions, One Way Ventures, and Tribe Capital, reinvested in this extension round.
The investment, according to co-founder and CEO Ham Serunjogi, is a critical repricing event for the company, providing it with a robust balance sheet that will allow it to continue scaling and “keep our dominance in the space.”
Why The Investors Invested
The traction the startup has generated has been remarkable. Chipper Cash has over four million users, and has entered the already crowded US-Africa corridor last month, joining established companies such as Wise, MoneyGram, Sendwave, and Remitly. It’s presence in the United States is a major turning point for the startup as the country accounts for about 30% of international remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa. Chipper Cash has also extended to the United Kingdom in May of this year, allowing individuals to send money from the European country to Chipper Cash’s African markets.
FTX is one of the world’s biggest bitcoin derivatives exchanges. The company received $420 million in a round last month, valued at $25 billion.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the company’s CEO and co-founder of Alameda Research, a quantitative trading platform, is also the company’s co-founder. He has invested in a variety of companies through FTX, including blockchain startups Sky Mavis and Circle, as well as brokerage trading platform DriveWealth (Chipper Cash recently partnered with DriveWealth to offer U.S. stocks to Ugandans).
Chipper Cash is FTX’s first investment in Africa, and it adds to a growing list of indicators pointing to serious crypto adoption on the continent. According to Chainalysis, crypto adoption in Africa increased by more than 1,000 percent in the last year, with peer-to-peer transaction volume totaling $105 billion. Bankman-Fried, on the other hand, believes there is still room for adoption. “Despite Africa’s recent expansion, transporting money across the continent remains slow and costly. It’s unsurprising that it’s the fastest-growing market for crypto acceptance at the grassroots level,” he said.
The goal of FTX’s relationship with Chipper Cash, according to the CEO, is to “make money transfer as simple as sending a text message and speed the adoption of cryptocurrency throughout Africa and beyond.”
Given Bankman-Fried’s remark and Chipper Cash’s crypto experiments in Uganda and South Africa, it’s difficult to imagine the company not employing crypto to facilitate peer-to-peer money transfers within and outside Africa.
Through the new investment, FTX users in Africa will be able to “Pay using Chipper Cash” on the crypto trading platform.
“That’s going to be a compelling use case for both of our companies as we keep scaling and as FTX keeps scaling their geographical coverage,” the CEO said. “They do some of the most innovative work in the crypto space, so working with them is going to be quite exciting.”
A Look At What Chipper Cash Does
Founded in 2018 by Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled, (two college students brought together by their academic adventures at Grinnell College, Iowa, USA) Chipper Cash provides free, interoperable payments in and between Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Rwanda, and Nigeria.
It accomplishes this by allowing customers to link their mobile money accounts (regardless of provider) to Chipper and make P2P transfers via its simple smartphone application.
After launching in October 2018, Chipper has averaged 40% month-on-month growth and already serves hundreds of thousands of users, attesting to its powerful value proposition and customer-focused design. The company has scaled to 3 million users on its platform and processes an average of 80,000 transactions daily. In June 2020, Chipper Cash reached a monthly payments value of $100 million, according to CEO Ham Serunjogi .
As of the end of May 2021, the startup is represented in a number of African countries, including Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa and Kenya.. Chipper Cash also managed to expand to the UK. The country became the first market for the project outside of Africa.
Chipper Cash services are used by 4 million people. The startup noted that its user base grew by 33% over the coronavirus year 2020.
Parallel to its P2P app, the startup also runs Chipper Checkout: a merchant-focused, fee-based mobile payment product that generates the revenue to support Chipper Cash’s free mobile-money business.
On how the startup will compete in Africa’s crowded fintech ecosystem, Serunjogi pointed to Chipper Cash’s gratis-payment structure, among other factors.
“Money doesn’t buy product market fit. It doesn’t buy ultimate success in this space,” he said.
“By offering our product for free, we’re not in a pricing war or competing on a dollar-to-dollar basis. We’re in a pure utility war on who can provide the most value to our users. We’re quite comfortable with our position, and our long-term value proposition will speak for itself over time,” Serunjogi added.
Chipper Cash has also been experimenting with social payment systems. Twitter released its Tips feature, also known as Tip Jar, earlier this year to allow authors to earn money on the network. To make it available in diverse locations, the social media company linked with some payment platforms.
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions. He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance. He is also an award-winning write
One of Africa’s fastest growing fintech startups, Chipper Cash has gone live in South Africa with the offer of its free app in the country. Chipper Cash which facilitates free peer-to-peer (P2P) money transfers and instant cross-border payments in Africa, will now offer domestic P2P money transfers in South Africa.
This will enable South Africans to enjoy free unlimited instant domestic money transfers, invest in cryptocurrencies, and buy and send airtime and data to anyone.
The fintech startup which was founded in 2018 by Ham Serunjogi (CEO) and Maijid Moujaled (President) and headquartered in San Francisco, USA has been experiencing rapid user adoption in many countries as it quickly opened offices in Nigeria, Kenya, United Kingdom, and South Africa.
According to a statement from the company, the Chipper Cash app was created to make money transfers easy and efficient for Africans at scale, to increase access to financial services for the underbanked, and digitising daily payments to ease the reliance on cash.
Users can instantly purchase airtime and data from leading South African network providers to send to friends and family. In addition, Chipper Cash allows people to buy, sell and transfer Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USD Coin all in one app.
Having raised $100 million in a Series C funding round in June 2021, and with over 4 million users globally, up to 80,000 transactions processed per day, Chipper Cash has experienced exponential growth since its first launch.
The South African launch brings its African network to a total of seven African countries, which include Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Nigeria.
“Domestic remittances are a lifeline for many families in South Africa. Over R157-billion moves between provinces every year, with people sending money to their families and friends. This is not only the result of the 7.7-million people who moved to other provinces for work, but it is the overall 24-million South Africans who send money to each other daily,” said Pardon Mujakachi, Vice President: Strategy & Partnerships, Africa.
“Chipper Cash’s free, fast and easy domestic P2P service is now available to them all. We believe it gives South Africans the freedom to instantly send money anywhere in the country from their mobile phones.”
Upon downloading the app, new users will register a profile to get into the Chipper Cash ecosystem. The app’s services, however, are not accessible unless users are verified. This verification process is done through a simple and easy-to-follow compliance process commonly referred to as the know-you-customer process, where users submit an identity document, such as an ID or a valid passport.
After verification is complete, users can then connect their existing online bank account to their Chipper Cash profile and start transacting. All personal information and transaction data are stored under secure encryption to protect against any unauthorised access.
“We are very excited for South Africa to experience Chipper Cash and take advantage of the app’s features such as fast and safe P2P money transfers, buying discounted airtime and data, and investing in selected cryptocurrencies,” adds Mujakachi, who also says the app is looking to introduce a host of new features such as cross-border transfers across countries within its network.
“We believe that Chipper Cash will help formalise local and regional remittances that tend to be sent through informal channels, which can be expensive, unsafe, and unreliable. Such a meaningful difference is true to the goals and vision of Chipper Cash’s founders,” he concludes. Chipper Cash is available for download, for free, on iOS and Android.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
African fintech startup Chipper Cash has achieved unicorn status after raising $100 million in a C-Series funding round.
The round was headed by the investment division of the American Silicon Valley Bank — SVB Capital. Deciens Capital, Ribbit Capital, Bezos Expeditions, One Way Ventures, 500 Startups, Tribe Capital and Brue2 Ventures also took part in financing the startup.
Chipper Cash founder Ham Serunjogi
The developers plan to use the funds to create new products. Part of the funding will also go towards hiring new employees.
S/N
AFRICAN UNICORNS
SECTOR
YEAR FOUNDED
YEAR BECAME A UNICORN
COUNTRY (PRIMARY MARKET)
TEAM MEMBERS
1
Jumia
Ecommerce
2012
2019
Nigeria
Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec, ex-McKinsey consultants
2
Interswitch
Financial services
2002
2019
Nigeria
Mitchell Elegbe
3
Fawry
Financial services
2008
2020
Egypt
Ashraf Sabry
4
Flutterwave
Financial services
2016
2021
Nigeria
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Olugbenga Agboola
5
OPay
Financial services
2018
2021
China
Opera
6
Chipper Cash
Financial services
2018
2021
Africa, with HQ in San Francisco, California, USA
Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled
African billion dollar companies so sar.
A Look At What Chipper Cash Does
Founded in 2018 by Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled, (two college students brought together by their academic adventures at Grinnell College, Iowa, USA) Chipper Cash provides free, interoperable payments in and between Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Rwanda, and Nigeria.
It accomplishes this by allowing customers to link their mobile money accounts (regardless of provider) to Chipper and make P2P transfers via its simple smartphone application.
After launching in October 2018, Chipper has averaged 40% month-on-month growth and already serves hundreds of thousands of users, attesting to its powerful value proposition and customer-focused design. The company has scaled to 3 million users on its platform and processes an average of 80,000 transactions daily. In June 2020, Chipper Cash reached a monthly payments value of $100 million, according to CEO Ham Serunjogi .
As of the end of May 2021, the startup is represented in a number of African countries, including Uganda, Nigeria and Tanzania. Chipper Cash also managed to expand to the UK. The country became the first market for the project outside of Africa.
Chipper Cash services are used by 4 million people. The startup noted that its user base grew by 33% over the coronavirus year 2020.
Parallel to its P2P app, the startup also runs Chipper Checkout: a merchant-focused, fee-based mobile payment product that generates the revenue to support Chipper Cash’s free mobile-money business.
On how the startup will compete in Africa’s crowded fintech ecosystem, Serunjogi pointed to Chipper Cash’s gratis-payment structure, among other factors.
“Money doesn’t buy product market fit. It doesn’t buy ultimate success in this space,” he said.
“By offering our product for free, we’re not in a pricing war or competing on a dollar-to-dollar basis. We’re in a pure utility war on who can provide the most value to our users. We’re quite comfortable with our position, and our long-term value proposition will speak for itself over time,” Serunjogi added.
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions. He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance. He is also an award-winning writer
The San Francisco based innovative fintech company Chipper Cash has continued efforts to build strongholds in Africa as it strengthens market positions in seven African countries. Backed by the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, Chipper Cash enables customers to make cross border payments into and across Africa that are seamless and affordable. Chipper Cash recently secured a US$30 Million Series B funding round led by Ribbit Capital with participation from Bezos Expeditions — the personal venture capital fund of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man — to expand its products and geographic scope.
Jovani Ntabgoba, Chipper Cash Country Manager for Rwanda.
As part of efforts aimed at strengthening presence in central Africa, Chipper made some new management changes especially in Rwanda with the appointment of Jovani Ntabgoba as Country Manager for Rwanda. Ntabgoba earlier worked as Country Director of N-Frnds Ltd, General Manager of kLab and investment advisory to Japanese Tech companies. This move comes in a bid to strengthen Chipper Cash’s presence on the Rwandan Market.
Ntabgoba said that “Rwanda is strategically positioned as both an innovation hub and a financial hub. The Rwandan government has set up sound business regulations, state of the art ICT infrastructures, academia and Rwanda Finance Limited among others. Chipper Cash is strengthening its presence in Rwanda so as to leverage these services and better serve both Rwanda and other African markets seamlessly.”
Customers in Rwanda can use Chipper Cash for both Android and Apple devices. Customers can then link a mobile money account to credit their Chipper wallet. Once a wallet has funds, customers can then send money to other Chipper users including in other countries. Using Chipper allows those transfers to occur instantly and securely at the lowest rates. Chipper Cash was first introduced publicly in Kenya in August of 2018. It now has over 3.5 million users and is available in the following countries: United Kingdom, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, and Rwanda.
“Chipper’s mission is to unlock global opportunities and bring Africa together, one transaction at a time. With our recent round of funding and opening of the UK to Africa remittance corridor, more people will be able to use Chipper to send money to loved ones and grow their businesses at home and abroad,” explains Alicia Levine, Chipper Cash, Chief Operating Officer. Among other past experiences, Ntabgoba served as Sales and Marketing Manager at Kigali Today Ltd.
Chipper Technologies, Rwanda Ltd., “Chipper Rwanda” is a private company, incorporated in Rwanda in 2019. Chipper Rwanda ensures the smooth local operations and legal obligations of activities carried out in Rwanda for Rwandan customers utilizing Chipper Cash in Rwanda. Chipper Rwanda team members provide daily support to customers using the Chipper Cash App and also provide feedback to the global team regarding local operational issues and market needs. Chipper Rwanda is a subsidiary company of Critical Ideas, Inc., based in the United States.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
As Egypt’s Zedny raised $1.2 million while South Africa’s Planet42, raised $2.4-million respectively
Things seem to be looking up for some African startups even in the midst of the global pandemic. This buttresses an earlier point made by African Heroes early this month that inspite of the Covid-19 pandemic, investor’s seem to have a huge appetite for African markets and startups. Chipper Cash, Africa’s fastest growing fintech app which observers say has disrupted the traditional payment services by offering zero-fee, peer-to-peer payment services across seven African countries has just raised $13.8 million Series A funding from investors. This funding according to the company sources will help actualize its plans to expand its workforce across different geographies.
Mohamed Youssef ElBaz Founder and CEO of_Zedny
The round which was co-led by Deciens Capital and Raptor Group had other participating investors including 500 Startups and Liquid 2 Ventures. Chipper Cash, a cross-border app with services in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Ghana and over 1.5 million users and records transaction volume of over $100 million a month has been the cynosure of investor’s eyes. And with this latest funding round, Chipper Cash has now raised $22 million in two years. Founded in 2018, Chipper Cash was started by Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled.
In a similar development, Egypt’s edtech startup, Zedny has raised $1.2 million pre-seed funding to roll out a new online learning platform. The platform has over 200 courses and 400 animated video summaries top global business books. According to Disrupt Africa, the startup provides year-long online learning and also acts as an external employee performance evaluator via its AI integrations.
Not left out of the pie, Planet42, a South Africa-based startup has raised €2.2-million ($2.4-million) seed round. The round was led by Change Ventures, an Estonian VC company, with participation from top Estonian tech entrepreneurs including Martin Villig, co-founder of Bolt, Pipedrive’s Ragnar Sass, MeetFrank’s Marko Virkebau, and Katana MRP’s Kristjan Vilosius. Founded by two Estonians, Marten Orgna and Eerik Oja, Planet42 is a vehicle rental company. It works with auto dealerships to offer rent-to-buy services for private clients over the long-term. The company said it will use the new funding to expand its portfolio of cars. It plans to control 100,000 cars in South Africa by 2024.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Ham and Maijid met at Grinnell College in Iowa, where they learned that they not only shared similar passions and interests, but also similar backgrounds (Ham is from Uganda and Maijid is from Ghana). The duo knew they wanted to collaborate and create something impactful at scale that leveraged their shared African heritage. Together, they founded Chipper Cash, which allows for instant cross-border mobile money transfers. Just yesterday, Chipper cash raised $13.8m from investors, including Deciens Capital. However, before the duo could go all-in on their new company, they had to overcome some very unique challenges.
Tell us a bit about Chipper Cash?
Ham: At its core, Chipper is the first platform to support cross-border mobile payment in Africa. The reason why we set out to build this company was because Maijid and I knew quite intimately the challenges people were facing around moving money in Africa. We were both born and bred in Africa. I’m from Uganda and Maijid is from Ghana, so we’ve grown up knowing how difficult it is to send and receive money within Africa and saw an opportunity to try and solve that problem.
Maijid and I met during college at Grinnell College in Iowa, and that’s where our paths first crossed. We worked really well together on a number of projects and always wanted to do something together that leveraged the fact that we’re both born and bred in Africa. We’ve also had the fortune of being educated and trained in the U.S., so we knew that if we could find a way to marry those two subsets of skills, we could build something impactful at scale.
The initial brainstorming process, where we considered what types of projects we could build and what it would look like, led to us building Chipper. We’re a young company that launched in Uganda just over a year ago. We’re now operating in six countries–Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Nigeria.
Our headquarters is located in San Francisco, and we have a small office in New York as well as an office in Nairobi. A good portion of our team is based in Nairobi covering all of the functions, and we’re actively growing our employee base in Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Ghana. I’d say we have close to 40 employees right now.
Maijid: Ham and I knew we wanted to do something together, and we had previously worked on a voice messaging app which was essentially a predecessor of Snapchat. That was a successful project, but we realized it was just another plaything that didn’t really impact the world.
Ham eventually went on to work at Facebook, and I was working at Imgur, and we were exploring what was next for us. Around this time in 2016, cryptocurrency really began taking off. We were playing around with Bitcoin, and both thought that moving money should be free and easy. Even though Chipper isn’t really a cryptocurrency platform, there’s a lot of crypto concepts out there that apply to it.
Almost every country has a free payment system, but Africa as a whole didn’t until we came along. In the long run, even if it’s not Chipper that fills this need for Africa, someone is going to do it. The turning point for our career paths was deciding that we’d rather do something meaningful and more long term. We want to leave a legacy behind.
Ham: What Maijid just said is really spot on. In a lot of ways, Maijid was a mentor of mine at Grinnell and showed me the ropes. One of the things we were both naturally aligned on was that we always wanted to start our own company. Having that shared mindset made us identify very well with each other. Like Maijid said, we worked on different projects together, and to me it was clear early on that this was someone who I’d be willing to take a bold step with.
What are some challenges you’ve encountered as an immigrant founder building a company in the U.S.?
Ham: When we decided that we were going to start our own company, I wasn’t thinking “We’re two African guys about to start a company in America”. What I was thinking was there’s a problem that exists and we might be able to fix it. Maybe when we look back we’ll say, “Wow, as a couple of international students we were able to build a company in the U.S.” But when you’re going through it like we are now, we’re really just trying to solve the problem and take it one day at a time. Maybe I’m missing the weight of the moment by looking at it from this perspective, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that Ugandans are particularly drawn to starting businesses more than anyone else.
However, you’re 100% correct in saying that there are challenges we had to overcome due to the fact that we weren’t born here. Starting a business isn’t an easy thing to do, and it’s even harder to do when you’re a non-American. So in that sense, being from Africa has been somewhat of an obstacle, but the larger obstacle is just constantly chasing the north star so to speak, and hoping our business continues to grow and thrive.
Maijid: One experience I can think of is applying for the H-1B visa. There’s roughly a 23% chance of getting an H-1B, and if you don’t get it, you have no choice but to leave the country. I had friends that had to go to the United Kingdom because they weren’t able to get it. Both at Yahoo and Imgur, I tried to get a visa but was unsuccessful. On a personal level, that uncertainty definitely drains you.
But I was lucky that I applied to this program called Remote Year, which allowed me to travel the world for twelve months while working remotely for a company. At the time, I had a Ghanaian passport, which makes it hard to travel the world, so I had to apply for a visa basically in every country I visited. Sometimes the visa interviews were in Spanish, and there was a ton of uncertainty regarding whether or not I’d be able to complete the program.
When I look back on my path, it’s hard to think of it from a more general perspective. I was always thinking about what’s next and taking things one step at a time. Being in a constant state of thinking about the larger picture and making sure I was on top of the visa process was a little overwhelming at times.
Ham: In terms of the immigration process, I can’t emphasize how important and difficult that was for us to navigate. I actually had to leave the country because of my visa. I had to work at Facebook in Dublin because I couldn’t work at Facebook in the U.S. due to visa-related issues.
When Maijid and I were starting the company, neither of us had U.S. visas. In that moment, we could’ve said, “Man, how are we supposed to get our U.S. visas and also figure out how to raise money and grow our company?”. We could have easily given up and tried to figure something else out, but I’m incredibly glad that we didn’t.
Did either of you ever encounter any uncertainty or self-doubt that made you more resilient?
Ham: The biggest disappointment I encountered professionally was the fact that I had to leave America after graduating. That was incredibly hard for me because I worked very hard to get a job at Facebook and had put everything on the line to get that job, but I couldn’t take it because of my visa. Even though my plan was always to break off and start something of my own, it was important for me to first have some really strong years of experience in a fast-growing company with great opportunities. To lose out on that opportunity because of my visa was really tough.
Luckily, I ended up getting a different role at Facebook in Ireland, but in my mind, it was always a reminder that I couldn’t have the one that I wanted in the U.S. It was almost like a deviation from my path of where I wanted to go. I wanted to be a successful entrepreneur, and a lot of that hinged on access to capital, talent, and other things that were available in the U.S. I didn’t see that path being possible in Dublin.
There was a moment for me when I had to come to terms with reality and accept that my plans might not pan out like I thought they would. However, I was quite determined to make sure those hopes and dreams I had didn’t get lost in this new reality. That’s probably the closest thing I can point to in terms of grappling with some self-doubt.
Maijid: I also had to deal with leaving the U.S. I had worked for two years in the U.S., and didn’t get the visa that I had fought so hard to earn. I remember I was on a plane from San Francisco to Lisbon, and I felt like I had worked so hard the past few years, only to be sent away because my name wasn’t randomly picked by a computer. It just felt unfair, and I cried all week leading up to Lisbon.
I was able to apply for a green card while traveling through my Remote Year program, but even that process was very uncertain and was going to take anywhere from two to four years. To not know which direction I was going in, and to feel like my hard work had gone unrewarded, it just made me really worried about what would happen next.
During my remote year, we were building Chipper on the side. This is where I still saw the value of working remotely because even though I was not in Silicon Valley, I was still connected to so many people working there. It’s like when you leave home, you end up feeling more connected to it because you look at it through a different lense. After a while, my confidence in the company began to grow, and I ended up getting my green card after about 19 months. I started working at Imgur part-time, which is also about the time when Ham quit his job and came to San Francisco.
Just being able to come back to the country where we both wanted to be for so long was amazing. We both went through experiences that had so much uncertainty, but here we are. We were always doing Chipper on the side, but now we’re in a place where Ham and I are all in.
Ham: In hindsight, the parallels between the two paths are so obvious, but at the time it didn’t seem that way.
One of the things that I wanted to emphasize was the sadness that we felt when leaving the U.S. Having moved from Africa to Iowa and spending most of our time in the U.S., we already invested so much in making America our new home. The connections we built, the people that we loved, there was just a lot to be optimistic about here in the states. Coming to the realization that we had to leave and go through the immigration process again was really scary.
What’s also interesting is that we actually left at the same time in June of 2016. I was going to Dublin and Maijid was going to Lisbon to start his remote year, and then we came back at the same time, which was around February of 2018. So in hindsight, the parallels between our journeys are uncanny.
Looking back, we’re both so much better off because of the hardships we had to endure to get here. I’m better off because of the time I spent in Europe and what I learned there, and I think Maijid is better off because of the time he spent traveling around the world. It made us much more complete people, and has definitely benefited us in the journey we’ve taken with Chipper.
What advice do you have for immigrant founders building companies outside of their native countries?
Ham: People will often say, “ignorance is bliss”, and I think this applies to people looking to start their own companies. Sometimes, it’s good to not know everything you’re trying to accomplish, because those things can become distractions and turn into fears. If Maijid and I focused on the fact that we’re two kids from Africa trying to start a company in America, it would distract us from what we’re actually trying to accomplish.
For anyone trying to start a business outside of their native country, I would say to focus on what your primary goals on. Everything else is a distraction. Don’t think about the reasons why one goal may be unrealistic or constantly get caught up in doubting yourself. Other people can do that for you. Just focus on what you’re trying to do and everything else will take care of itself. At the end of the day, overthinking things doesn’t make what you’re trying to do more or less important, it only wastes your energy.
Maijid: I couldn’t have said it any better. I think if there’s one thing that I’d add, it’s that there’s a lot of distractions out there, and even the concept of someone giving you advice can be a distraction.
If you ask the world for advice, you’ll end up getting very different opinions that can be hard to grapple with. Sometimes, the advice you receive can be extremely confusing. The advice you seek should depend on what you hope to accomplish. Of course, you shouldn’t hesitate to ask people for advice, but at some point, you have to do what feels right for you.
Prioritizing your gut instincts makes it easier to power through when you hit a wall because you’re not blaming someone else who gave you bad advice. For me, it’s important to always look internally and really consider what I believe is the best course of action.
One Way Ventures invests in extraordinary founders who were deeply shaped by their immigration experience. The VC is one of the early investors in Chipper Cash.
Ideometry is a Boston-based full-service marketing agency serving a global client base. With a full suite of creative, development, and strategic services, Ideometry helps growth stage startups and Fortune 500 companies alike get the business results they’re looking for.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions. He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance. He is also an award-winning writer
It looks like investor Deciens Capital has found a new home in Chipper Cash, the Africa-focused fintech startup that allows you to send and receive any amount of money across Africa for free. Barely six months after pouring over $6 million into the startup, the venture capital firm has followed it on with a co-investment of $13.8 million in a Series A funding round. This is notwithstanding the fact that Deciens Capital was also part of Chipper Cash’s $2.4 seed round in 2019.
Chipper Cash Co-founder Ham Serunjogi
“We’ve been huge beneficiaries of the generosity and openness of this country (USA) and its entrepreneurial spirit. But growing up in Africa, we’re able to navigate [the U.S.] without the traumas and baggage our African American friends have gone through living in America,” said co-founder Ham Serunjogi, who has also announced the launch of the Chipper Fund for Black Lives targeted at giving 5 to 10 grants of $5,000 to $10,000 to people or causes who are furthering social justice reforms.
The recent investment had been confirmed by Deciens Capital founder Dan Kimmerling. Founded in 2012, Deciens Capital invests mostly in US-based fintech startups. The venture capital company claims to have invested in over forty early stage fintech companies since inception. Its most recent investment was on Apr 27, 2020, when Starcity raised $30M.
“Chipper Cash illustrates how the three axes of affordability, accessibility and appropriateness can help startups understand how to generate traction and uptake with low-income customers, and thereby drive business growth. The use of tech alone is not enough: Startups must carefully consider how to make a tech-enabled product that works for low-income people, given their existing devices, needs and comfort levels,” noted Catalyst Fund, one of the startup’s early investors.
Year-on-year, fintech startups in Africa have always collected the lion’s share of funding
Founded in 2018 by Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled, (two college students brought together by their academic adventures at Grinnell College, Iowa, USA) Chipper Cash provides free, interoperable payments in and between Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Rwanda, and Nigeria.
It accomplishes this by allowing customers to link their mobile money accounts (regardless of provider) to Chipper and make P2P transfers via its simple smartphone application.
Deciens ‘ Capital investment in Chipper Cash is a game changer in the face of the pandemic
After launching in October 2018, Chipper has averaged 40% month-on-month growth and already serves hundreds of thousands of users, attesting to its powerful value proposition and customer-focused design.
“We’re now at over one and a half million users and doing over a $100 million dollars a month in volume,” Serunjogi told TechCrunch, an online tech magazine.
Parallel to its P2P app, the startup also runs Chipper Checkout: a merchant-focused, fee-based mobile payment product that generates the revenue to support Chipper Cash’s free mobile-money business.
On how the startup will compete in Africa’s crowded fintech ecosystem, Serunjogi pointed to Chipper Cash’s gratis-payment structure, among other factors.
“Money doesn’t buy product market fit. It doesn’t buy ultimate success in this space,” he said.
“By offering our product for free, we’re not in a pricing war or competing on a dollar-to-dollar basis. We’re in a pure utility war on who can provide the most value to our users. We’re quite comfortable with our position, and our long-term value proposition will speak for itself over time,” Serunjogi added.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions. He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance. He is also an award-winning writer
