Chipper Cash CEO on why African startups aren’t launching the next Paypal

Africa’s fragmented nature could be why the continent’s startups have found it difficult to launch merchant-focused payments products such as Paypal, surmises Ham Serunjogi the CEO of cross-border payments startup Chipper Cash.

The startup last week announced that it had raised a $2.4-million seed round led by California-based Deciens Capital and now plans to launch a merchant-focused consumer-to-business (C2B) mobile payments product.

Responding via LinkedIn yesterday (13 May), Serunjogi (pictured above, left) said he thinks one of the issues that a lot of companies operating in Africa have to deal with is the fragmented nature of various things on the continent.

“America is one country, Europe has a common currency, China and India have over one billion people each, but Africa is 54 different currencies, cultures, and markets.

“This makes it incredibly difficult to navigate this vastly diverse continent and requires us to re-think all assumptions we have about what’s worked elsewhere,” explained Serunjogi.

Chipper Cash has announced plans to launch a merchant-focused consumer-to-business (C2B) mobile payments product called Chipper Checkout

US publication TechCrunch reported in an article last Thursday (9 May) that Chipper Cash had raised a $2.4-million seed round led by California-based Deciens Capital.

Liquid 2 Ventures, 500 Startups and Liquid 2 Ventures are reported to have also participated in the round.

Chipper Cash’s earlier investors include One Way Ventures, Transition Level Investments and Brue2 Ventures.

Serunjogi, who is Ugandan, launched the mobile cross-border money transfer platform in 2018 together with Ghanaian co-founder Majid Moujaled (pictured above, right).

Serunjogi told TechCrunch, in the same article, that Chipper Cash has more than 70 000 active users.

The startup has also announced that it plans to launch a merchant-focused consumer-to-business (C2B) mobile payments product called Chipper Checkout.

The San Francisco based startup — which has East African and West African headquarters in Kenya and Ghana, respectively — currently operates in Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

Serunjogi declined to comment on which countries Chipper Cash will expand to this year, he however offered that the startup is “actively expanding”.

Featured image (left to right): Chipper Cash CEO and co-founder Ham Serunjogi, Paystack CEO and co-founder Shola Akinlade, and Chipper Cash president and co-founder Majid Moujaled (Ham Serunjogi via Twitter)