Ham Serunjogi - Afrikan Heroes

Chipper Cash Becomes Africa’s Newest Unicorn

June 2, 2021

Trailing the pathway set by others in recent times one of Africa’s leading cross-border payment startup Chipper Cash, has secured $100 million in a Series C funding round. Led by SVB Capital, the investment arm of Silicon Valley Bank, the round saw participation from other investors including Deciens Capital, One Way Ventures, Ribbit Capital, 500 Startups, Bezos Expeditions, Tribe Capital, and Brue2 Ventures.

Founded in 2018 by Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled, Chipper Cash is a provider of mobile-based, no fee, peer-to-peer (P2P) payment services across seven African countries: Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa, and Kenya.

In the last two years, Chipper Cash has been on a successful roll following a $8.4 million seed funding in 2019, and in 2020 alone, it closed a $13.8 million funding in June and a $30 million Series B round led by Ribbit Capital with Jeff Bezos’s personal VC fund – Bezos Expeditions- in November. With this latest investment of $100 million, the company has so far raised a total amount of $152.2 million.

Chipper Cash plans to deploy the latest cash injection to expand its offerings, and its workforce by adding hiring up to 100 employees. Its new products will include US stock offerings for users in Nigeria and Uganda.

Expanding beyond Africa, the company has entered into the United Kingdom, according to CEO, Ham Serunjogi. “We’ve launched cards products in Nigeria and we’ve also launched our crypto product. We’re also launching our US stocks product in Uganda, Nigeria, and a few other countries soon”, he said. Currently, Chipper Cash claims to serve about 4 million users across the African continent.

Up until recently, Africa had only five private unicorn startups, including Jumia, Flutterwave, and Interswitch. Serunjogi disclosed that Chipper Cash is probably the most valuable private startup in Africa today after this round. Though subtle, it can be inferred from his statement that the company has indeed become Africa’s sixth unicorn.

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

Three-year-old African Fintech Chipper Cash Raises $100m, Becomes A Unicorn

May 31, 2021

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.

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.
Read also:National Bank Of Egypt Adopts RippleNet Blockchain Technology

“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 fintech Chipper Cash fintech

4 Months After Raising $13.8m, African Startup Chipper Cash Secures Another $30m, Backed By World Richest Man Bezos

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

Again, Africa-focused Payment Startup Chipper Cash Raises $13.8m

June 17, 2020

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.

“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.

Here Is All You Need To Know

This round of funding was co-led by Deciens Capitaland Raptor Group, with repeat support from 500 Startups and Liquid 2 Ventures .
The startup is looking to hire 30 new staff across operations in San Francisco, Lagos, London, Nairobi and New York, Serunjogi said.
With the round announcement, Chipper Cash also formed the Chipper Fund for Black Lives.
Barely two years, the startup has raised $22 million in total funding, from investors such as, Australia-based Transition Level Investments, US-based VC firms Liquid 2 Ventures, One Way Ventures, 500 Startups, Deciens Capital and Catalyst Fund.

Why The Investors Invested

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.

How The Coronavirus Has Revealed The Need For More Venture Capital ... — *Year-on-year, fintech startups in Africa have always collected the lion’s share of funding*

A Look At What The Startup 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.

*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