#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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