Chipper Cash, an African cross-border payments company, has raised $150 million in a Series C extension round led by Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX. The investment comes barely six months after Chipper Cash closed its first Series C round of $100 million, led by SVB Capital, the corporate venture capital arm of SVB Financial Group. SVB Capital reinvested in this extension round and other existing investors such as Deciens Capital, Ribbit Capital, Bezos Expeditions, One Way Ventures and Tribe Capital. While new investors also participated, they remain unnamed now. The company’s total Series C stands at $250 million but its total funding to date is over $305 million.
The company began to make strides outside the continent. In May, it expanded to the U.K., allowing people to send money from the European nation to Chipper Cash’s African markets. Chipper Cash, with over four million users, ventured into the already competitive U.S. to Africa corridor with established players such as Wise, MoneyGram, Sendwave and Remitly; the U.S. is responsible for almost 30% of the international remittances to sub-Saharan Africa. Though the margins for remittances are small, the market has grown exponentially for the better part of the past decade, except last year when total remittances stood at $42 billion, down from $48 billion in 2020, per the World Bank. The sector remains the most funded on the continent. It has produced the most unicorns, with Chipper Cash — the most valuable startup on the continent alongside OPay — officially becoming the fourth this year after Flutterwave, OPay and Wave.