The African no-fee, cross-border payments fintech startup Chipper Cash raised $2.4 million in seed funding led by Deciens Capital. 500 startups and Liquid 2 Ventures also joined the round. Chipper Cash also launched Chipper Checkout a merchant-focused consumer to business (C2B) mobile payments product.
Chipper Cash plans to expand beyond its current operations in Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda in the coming year. The African fintech startup also plans to foray into the global remittance market for Sub Saharan Africa which is estimated to be worth at least $38 billion.
Chipper Cash is based in San Francisco with offices in Ghana and Nairobi. It offers no-fee, peer-to-peer cross border mobile money payments in Africa. According to its CEO, Chipper Cash has processed 250,000 transactions for more than 70,000 active users.
The African fintech startup was founded by Ugandan CEO Ham Serunjogi with Majid Moujaled, a Ghanian. Liquid 2 Ventures was founded by US football legend Joe Montana, who took a personal interest in investing in the Africa growth story.
Chipper Cash plans to use revenues from Chipper Checkout and income from payment volume float to support its no-fee mobile money business, TechCrunch reported. According to Serunjogi the fact that Chipper Cash settles money transfers across Africa in real time is a key value proposition for the African fintech startup.
Africa has a number of mobile money products including Kenya’s M-Pesa, MTN’s Mobile Money in Ghana and Tigo Pesa in Tanzania. However, mobile money transfers across product platforms, currencies, and borders are difficult to execute due to issues with interoperability.