The current richest man on the globe and CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is the latest to invest in a promising African tech startup.
Chipper Cash, a cross-border, peer to peer payments service, has raised $30 million in a Series B funding round led by Ribbit Capital with support from Bezos Expeditions, a personal venture capital fund owned by Mr Bezos.
This is the first investment for Bezos’ fund in an African startup - a fund which has supported international tech brands including Twitter, Uber and Airbnb.
The company was co-founded by Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled and Ugandan Ham Serunjogi in 2018, since then, its payments service is available in seven African countries; Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa, and Kenya.
It has also reached $100 million in monthly payments processed last June.
Chipper Cash’s latest funding comes after it managed to raise $13.8 million in a Series A round six months ago.
With some 3 million users and an average of 80,000 daily transactions, Chipper Cash is aspiring to reach more customers in various countries and also widen its products suite.
Meanwhile, CEO Serunjogi says Chipper Cash’s new products will include allowing users to buy and sell cryptocurrency as well as invest in US stocks.
Recently, the Amazon CEO became the world’s biggest donor to climate activism with $10 billion “Earth Fund” to support climate change-related causes and groups.
Bezos’ investment in this startup adds him to a list of high-profile individuals that have expressed faith in African tech startups.
Some of these others include; Former US Vice-President Al Gore and 23-time tennis Grand Slam champion, Serena Williams as well as Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative who have all invested in Andela, a developer outsourcing firm that connects African software engineers to global clients.
Last month, Nigerian payments startup Paystack was acquired by US giant Stripe in a deal reportedly worth $200 million.
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