African cross-border Fintech startup Chipper Cash has closed a $13.8 Million (KSh 1.5 Billion) funding led by Deciens Capital. The company plans to hire 30 new staff globally.
The raise caps an event-filled run for the San Francisco-based payments company, founded two years ago by Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled.
Launched in 2018, Chipper Cash’s duo convinced 500 Startups and Liquid 2 Ventures — co-founded by American football legend Joe Montana — to back their company with seed funds.
After two years and $22 million in capital, Chipper Cash offers its mobile-based, no fee, P2P payment services in seven countries: Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa and Kenya.
“We’re now at over one and a half million users and doing over a $100 Million dollars a month in volume,” said Serunjogi.
Deciens Capital and Raptor Group co-led the startup’s Series A financing, with repeat support from 500 Startups and Liquid 2 Ventures .
Deciens Capital founder Dan Kimerling confirmed the fund’s lead on the investment and review of Chipper Cash’s payment value and volume metrics.
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.
The company will use its latest round of funding to hire up to 30 people across operations in San Francisco, Lagos, London, Nairobi and New York, according to Serunjogi.
The Chipper Fund for Black Lives will give 5 to 10 grants of $5,000 to $10,000. “The plan is to give that to…people or causes furthering social justice reforms,” said Serunjogi.
In Africa, Chipper Cash has placed itself in the continent’s major digital payments markets.
As a sector, Fintech has become Africa’s highest funded tech space, receiving the bulk of an estimated $2 Billion in VC that went to startups in 2019.
Africa has one of the world’s fastest-growing tech markets with Nigeria billed as its unofficial capital. American, Chinese and African tech capital is slowly gravitating to Nigeria.
