TECH CHAMPIONS

Chipper Cash: American network, African success

in depth

This article is part of the dossier:

Top 50 tech champions

By Kévin Poireault

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Posted on April 29, 2022 14:17

Having raised $250m and earned itself unicorn status, the fintech firm, which owes its success in part to its founders’ close proximity to Silicon Valley, had a wild 2021.

This is part 5 of an 11-part series.

Ranked as one of the startups to watch in 2021 by media like Techgist Africa, African Vibes and the influencer Alex Mitchell, Chipper Cash has delivered. As the business world slowly recovers from a two-year pandemic, the international money-transfer startup, founded in 2018 by Uganda’s Ham Serunjogi and Ghana’s Maijid Moujaled, has been steadily making headlines.

In May 2021, it raised $100m in a funding round led by SVB Capital, which “probably” made it “the most highly valued African start-up”, according to its CEO Ham Serunjogi, who did not reveal the amount of this valuation. Even if his statement left some sceptical, the $150m Series C round in November, this time led by FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange platform of the world’s youngest billionaire, Sam Bankman-Fried, proved the Ugandan CEO right, as Chipper’s valuation had by then reached $2bn.

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