A pair of twentysomethings from Uganda and Ghana thought there was a fortune to be made bringing transnational financial services to Africa’s 1.2 billion people. With 5 million users, San Francisco-based Chipper Cash is just getting started.
, and Ham Serunjogi, a 24-year-old Ugandan immigrant, thought the pitch he was making to a Palo Alto venture capital firm was going well. He had explained how his fintech startup, Chipper Cash, would enable African consumers to send money to each other, across national borders, more cheaply and easily than the antiquated banking system—a sort of Venmo for the continent.
Sheel Mohnot, a former partner at 500 Startups—Chipper Cash’s first backer—chalks up some early investor resistance to ignorance about Africa. “No one was investing in Africa at the time,” he says. That has changed. Per CB Insights, venture capitalists invested $1.5 billion in African fintech companies last year, up sevenfold from 2020. Sub-Saharan Africans today have 605 million registered mobile money accounts—with which they can send cash via text message—up from 469 million in 2018.
After high school, Serunjogi followed his older brother to Grinnell, a small liberal arts college in Iowa known for its strong academics, where both swam varsity. At Grinnell he met Moujaled, a Ghanaian computer science major who had started a popular student coding group. Almost immediately, the two began talking about developing an African money transfer app. But first they wanted real-world tech experience and needed work visas.
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