Chipper Cash raises $30m in Series B featuring Jeff Bezos VC
San Francisco-based cross border payments firm Chipper Cash has nabbed $30 million in Series B funding in a round featuring Jeff Bezos’ VC fund.
Chipper has raised $52.2 million since 2017
The round, led by Ribbit Capital, saw participation from Bezos Expeditions. It brings the company’s total funding up to $52.2 million from six rounds.
Chipper operates across seven African nations and helps to provide peer-to-peer (P2P) payment services.
Founded in 2017 by Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled, Chipper Cash came into being after the two worked at Big Techs in Silicon Valley.
Serunjogi spent time at Facebook, and Moujaled at Flickr and Yahoo.
Chipper plans to use its latest injection to expand both its existing product portfolio and its geographical reach.
Serunjogi tells TechCrunch that his firm has had demand from customers for more services on its platform. These include the addition of cryptocurrencies and investment in stocks.
Chipper answered these with a partnership with US firm DriveWealth to enable investment in stocks from Africa. It has also adopted a Beta programme for crypto purchasing.
On the topic of the Bezos investment, Serunjogi suggests it shows the way the wind is blowing for African fintech.
“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,” he tells TechCrunch.
Nigerian challenger bank Kuda made headlines last week by raising a record $10 million in seed funding. The raise was the largest of its kind for a seed round in the region.
Payments fintech Stripe stumped up $200 million to acquire Nigerian firm Paystack in October. African remittance firms experienced surging numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Related: South African challenger Bettr prepares for 2021 launch
