Chipper Cash
Chipper Cash is a financial technology company founded in 2018 by Ugandan entrepreneur Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian engineer Maijid Moujaled. It began as a fee-free peer-to-peer cross-border payments app for African consumers and later added Visa cards, crypto, stock investing and remittance corridors from the United States and United Kingdom.1 The company is legally headquartered in San Francisco and operates across several African markets including Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa.
History
Serunjogi and Moujaled met as students at Grinnell College in Iowa and launched Chipper to make intra-Africa transfers as simple as sending a text. The product scaled quickly on no-fee P2P payments across English-speaking African corridors. In 2020–21 Chipper raised successive large rounds, including a $100 million Series C led by SVB Capital and a $150 million extension led by FTX, taking total capital above $300 million and a reported valuation above $2 billion.2
After the 2022 fintech winter and FTX’s collapse (FTX had marked the stake down to about $1.25 billion), Chipper cut staff in multiple rounds and refocused on core African payments, cards and profitability rather than rapid geographic expansion.3
Founders
Ham Serunjogi is co-founder and chief executive officer. A Ugandan entrepreneur, he has been the public face of Chipper’s pan-African payments thesis and later cost-discipline after the funding boom.
Maijid Moujaled is co-founder and president. A Ghanaian computer scientist, he partnered with Serunjogi on product and engineering as Chipper expanded from P2P transfers into cards, crypto and investments.
Model and licences
Chipper is not a full-service chartered bank. Customer balances sit on e-money and payments licences rather than classic deposit charters—payments and e-money authorisations in African markets (including Nigeria’s CBN, Ghana’s BoG and peers), U.S. money-transmitter licences and a UK FCA e-money institution permission. The model is closer to a multi-jurisdiction wallet and remittance platform than a UK-style licensed challenger bank.
Products
Core products include intra-Africa P2P and remittances, multi-currency wallets, the Chipper Visa card (virtual and physical in supported markets), crypto trading and access to U.S. stocks. Users and commentators often single out the card as a reliable spend product for Africans paying internationally.
Reception
Chipper was one of Africa’s best-known consumer fintech unicorns and a peer to Nala, Wise and Remitly on diaspora corridors. Supporters praise fee-free P2P and a card that “actually works” for global spend; critics note the post-2021 valuation cut, layoffs and the difficulty of defending a pan-African consumer wallet against mobile-money incumbents such as M-Pesa and specialist remittance apps.
External links
References
- Chipper Cash is a pan-African consumer payments and finance app offering transfers, cards and related products. https://chippercash.com/
- Chipper raised a $100 million Series C led by SVB Capital (2021) and a $150 million extension led by FTX, taking valuation above $2 billion. https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/01/chipper-cash-gets-2b-valuation-with-150m-extension-round-led-by-ftx/
- After FTX’s collapse Chipper’s valuation was marked down and the company conducted multiple layoff rounds while refocusing on core products. https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/20/chipper-cash-executes-second-round-of-layoffs-less-than-three-months-after-axing-12-5-of-staff/
Frequently asked questions
- What is Chipper Cash?
- Chipper Cash is a pan-African payments and consumer finance app offering cross-border transfers, cards, crypto and investing.
- When was Chipper Cash founded?
- Chipper Cash was founded in 2018.
- Where is Chipper Cash headquartered?
- Chipper Cash is headquartered in San Francisco, U.S..
- Who founded Chipper Cash?
- Chipper Cash was founded by Ham Serunjogi, Maijid Moujaled.
- What type of company is Chipper Cash?
- Chipper Cash is described as E-money / remittance wallet in its neobank.wiki profile.
- What is the official Chipper Cash website?
- The official website for Chipper Cash is https://chippercash.com/.
See also
- Accrue — Accrue is a Ghana- and Nigeria-rooted fintech that moves money across Africa and the US using a stablecoin agent network.
- Airwallex — Airwallex is an Australian-founded business fintech for global accounts, payments and spend management.
- Alex Johnson — Alex Johnson is the founder of Fintech Takes, a widely read fintech newsletter and podcast; he is active on X as @AlexH_Johnson.
- Alexandre Prot — Alexandre Prot is co-founder and CEO of Qonto, the Paris-based European business neobank.
- Ali Niknam — Ali Niknam is founder and CEO of Bunq, the Amsterdam-based licensed Dutch neobank.