African focused cross-border P2P payments startup, Chipper Cash just announced that it has closed its $30m Series B round.
Led by US-based VC firm, Ribbit Capital with participation from Bezos Expeditions — Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ personal VC fund — Chipper Cash will use the investment to improve its products and expand its markets.
Starting out primarily as a cross-border P2P payments platform, Chipper Cash now offers a merchant-focused service called Chipper Checkout. According to the company, Checkout serves as additional revenue for its free mobile-money business.
Now, it’s expanding offerings to include API payments solutions, crypto-currency trading options, and investment services.Advertisement
On the investment services, Ham Serunjogi, the startup’s CEO told TechCrunch that “we’ll launch [the stock product] in Nigeria first so Nigerians have the option to buy fractional stocks — Tesla shares, Apple shares or Amazon shares and others — through our app. We’ll expand into other countries thereafter.”
Back in June when Chipper Cash raised $13.8m Series A, Serunjogi said the company’s active users stood at about 1.5 million while it did over $100 million monthly transactions, in terms of volume.
I’m thrilled to announce our $30M Series B round – but particularly excited to have @RibbitCapital and @JeffBezos join us on this journey as we continue executing on our vision for @chippercashapp – https://t.co/3tVrqCvPhh
— Ham Serunjogi (@HSerunjogi) November 19, 2020
The active users’ numbers have since doubled to 3 million while processing an average of 80,000 transactions daily according to the company.
Founded by Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled in the US with a focus on African markets, Chipper Cash now operates in seven countries on the continent: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and South Africa.
In May 2019, it raised $2.4 million seed from Deciens Capital, 500 Startups, and Liquid 2 Ventures. The trio also participated in its second seed round of $6 million led by Deciens Capital in December 2019.
Deciens Capital was still at the heart of its Series A in June 2020 leading the round when Chipper Cash raised $13.8m.
With Ribbit Capital and Bezos Expeditions backing the startup this time, this brings the startup’s total investment to $52.2m. All in the space of two years.
Here’s what Serunjogi had to say about the round.
“It’s a big deal when a world-class investor like Bezos or Ribbit goes out of their sweet spot to a new area where they previously haven’t done investments. “Ultimately, the winner of those things happening is the African tech ecosystem overall, as it will bring more investment from firms of that calibre to African startups.”
