Jeff Bezos' backed Chipper Cash grew into Africa's most valuable startup with a $2 billion-dollar valuation.
Photo credit: Chipper Cash
"Nothing is More Powerful than an Idea Whose Time has Come". Africa’s most valuable startup, Chipper Cash, is a testament to this quote. Founded in 2017 by Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled, the company’s growth is one most would dream of. Chipper cash is considered Africa’s most Valuable Startup with a valuation of $2 billion. Yet still, such growth was not by fluke. Convincing investors to fork out $305 Million Dollars in seed funding is a clear testament to the company's potential.
With this in mind, let us look at the playbook Chipper Cash used that helped them achieve tremendous growth with 9 subsidiaries across Africa and Europe in just about five years of operation.
1. They solved a problem
For decades, African’s have moved overseas in search of greener pastures. A good number have been blessed to find success in the diaspora and longed to share their earnings with their kin back home in an efficient manner. This is the key problem the founders identified and developed a solution for it. Chipper Cash enabled people in the diaspora to remit money back home fast and easily.
2. Mobile-based solution
By developing a mobile-based person-to-person money transfer application, Chipper Cash eliminated the need for brick and mortar money agents such as Western Union. Money could now be remitted directly to one’s phone from the diaspora. The perfect solution! Couple this with an estimated 140 Million African’s living in the diaspora and Chipper Cash tapped into a large market that could consume their services all to their benefit.
3. Free money transfer
As if it wasn’t enough to come up with an innovative solution, why not make the key function of that solution free? This is exactly what Chipper Cash did. Their person-to-person (P2P) money transfer solution attracted no cost. This served as a key incentive that attracted users to the platform and enabled them to beat their competition hands down. Who doesn’t love an essential service that is free?
4. Offering business payment solutions
So how was the company going to make money if their main service was free? The founders thought about this and came up with a functional solution. They introduced a business payment solution named Chipper Checkout which allows businesses to receive payments from customers through Chipper Cash and they charge a transaction fee. Concurrently, they partnered with global payment giant Visa to offer Chipper Card which is a pre-paid card that one can use to shop globally.
5. Strategic partnerships
No man is an island seems to be a quote taken into consideration by those at Chipper Cash. The company has formed a strategic partnership with companies such as Twitter, Drive Wealth, and Visa. Their partnership with Twitter allows content creators to receive tips via Chipper cash through Twitter's Tip Jar function. In addition, they partnered with Drive Wealth to offer their users in-app investment in the U.S. equities market. Finally, their partnership with Visa gave birth to Chipper Card. This is a pre-paid digital card that allows holders to transact across the globe with ease.
6. Offer personal investment services
Through their partnership with Drive Wealth, an American company that is a pioneer in fractional investing and embedded finance, the Ugandan population is able to invest in U.S. equities such as Apple, Google, Tesla, etc. right from the Chipper Cash mobile app. The App uses Drive Wealth’s real-time fractional trading technology and API-based brokerage infrastructure to enable users to invest in the stock market. The company has since announced plans to avail the service to other African countries. This will expand their market and generate more revenue for them
7. Crypto trading
According to Chainlysis, crypto adoption in Africa grew more than 1,200% with the continent receiving $105.6 billion worth of cryptocurrency between July 2020 and June. However, most of this was via illicit addresses where most were scams. This is the problem Chipper Cash sought to solve by introducing a service that allows individuals to buy & sell Bitcoin across Africa. The ability to instantly convert your local currency to Bitcoin on Chipper Cash promised big returns for Africa’s most valuable startup.
8. Visionary leadership
Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled are clearly men with vision and laser focus towards taking Chipper Cash beyond its current Unicorn status. The two have achieved exponential growth in just under 5 years. They have guided the company to a valuation of $2 Billion having raised over $ 305 Million Dollars in seed funding and the future still bodes well for them.
What Next for Chipper Cash?
From the look of things, Africa’s most valuable startup is just scratching the surface. The company is in a market that is still growing hence the potential for future growth. Thus far, they have shown that a combination of good products coupled with strategic partnerships and visionary leadership is a winning formula for any startup looking to find success. Chipper Cash is currently king and rightfully so.
