Afrobility: Africa Tech and Business #33: Chipper Cash - How the FinTech platform started from African remittances to become the fastest unicorn in Africa Tech history
Overview: Today, we’re going to talk about Chipper Cash - The African Fintech payments & remittances player. We’ll explore the Chipper story across 6 areas:
- Intra-Africa remittances context
- Global remittances (outside Africa to Africa) context
- Chipper Cash’s launch, early history, growth & fundraising
- Chipper Cash's Product & monetization strategy
- Competitive positioning & potential exit options
- End with our overall outlook.
This episode was recorded on July 11 & Aug 1, 2021.
Companies discussed: Chipper Cash, Venmo, PayPal, Square, Flutterwave, EcoBank, Safaricom, Sendwave, MTN, Airtel, Deciens Capital & Liquid2 Ventures
Business concepts discussed: Consumer FinTech (Personal Finance OS) monetization strategy, FinTech exit strategy, Intra-African Remittances, International remittances, Cryptocurrency, Decentralized Finance, Stock trading & closed-loop payment networks
Conversation highlights:
- (01:07) - Why we’re talking about Chipper Cash
- (06:20) - Intra-African trade context
- (13:12) - Intra-African remittances context
- (21:40) - Global remittances (outside Africa to Africa) context
- (36:50) - Founder backgrounds - Ham Serunjogi & Majid Moujaled
- (46:06) - Chipper Cash founding and early history
- (52:30) - Fundraising and Growth - Angel, Series A, B & C
- (1:07:25) - Product strategy
- (1:08:25) - Monetization strategy
- (1:35:24) - Competition - horizontal and vertical
- (1:45:55) - Potential exit scenarios
- (1:54:12) - Bankole’s overall thoughts and outlook
- (2:01:32) - Olumide’s overall thoughts and outlook
- (2:08:40) - Recommendations and small wins
Olumide’s recommendations, small wins & open questions:
- Recommendation: Nailing Capital vs Scaling Capital (by Sajith Pai) , Essentialism (by Greg McKeown) & Owning Chinese Companies Is Complicated (by Matt Levine from Bloomberg)
- Small win: American Express Platinum new benefits: Clear! & Audible!
Bankole’s recommendations, small wins & open questions:
- Recommendation: Why startups fail by Tom Eisenmann & How to build an engine to find product market fit by Rahul Vohra
- Small win: Dinner with friends on a rooftop in Seattle
- Other content: Chipper Cash pitch at 500 Startups & A columnist Makes Sense of Wall Street Like None Other - The New York Times
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