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Ham Serunjogi is the CEO & Co-Founder of pan-African fintech platform Chipper Cash.
Launched in 2018, the company has raised over $300 million in VC funding and is on the short list of African tech companies to have ever reached a $1 billion valuation.
Chipper Cash started its journey as a cross-border P2P payments platform but has since evolved to also offer virtual card services, US fractional stock purchases, and a crypto exchange on the B2C side, plus a number of B2B 'Chipper for Business' services including Chipper ID, its new identity verification & digital KYC offering.
As Ham told me, “[there's no] other platform or company in Africa that has the breadth of products that we have on one platform.” And that product offering seems to be working. The company has ~5 million registered users and reportedly generated over $100 million in revenue last year.
But it has also been in the headlines recently thanks to layoffs and a valuation cut.
This conversation was originally recorded on September 14th, 2022.
Among other things, Ham and I discuss:
• Company building in tough times
• The new Chipper ID product and turning costs into revenue lines
• Being opportunistic vs. disciplined when it comes to product portfolios
• Building for the peculiarities of African markets
• What happened with the company's reported acquisition talks
• The loneliness of being an entrepreneur and advice for founders
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Emeka: Hello everyone. I'm here today with Ham Serunjogi, Co-founder and CEO of pan-African consumer fintech, Chipper Cash. Thanks for being here, Ham.
[00:00:11] Ham: Thank you for having me Emeka, it's good to be with you today.
[00:00:13] Emeka: My pleasure. Now, of course, I want to talk to you about the new product Chipper ID. But while I have you here, there's a lot that the audience can learn from you. And I'll just run through very quickly some Chipper Cash highlights.
So you all, since 2018, you guys have raised over $300 million. You have 5 million or so registered users. You reportedly generated over $100 million in revenue last year. You've acquired or are in the process of acquiring a Zambian company, Zoona. You operate in multiple countries in many of Africa's largest fintech markets. You've built one of the few African companies to reach unicorn status.
But you've experienced a valuation cut that made headlines very publicly. Chipper Cash was also among the companies, the few companies directly affected by the FTX collapse. And you've gone through a few rounds of layoffs, right?
So you certainly have the experience in terms of highs and lows to talk knowledgeably about building valuable tech companies in Africa. So let's just start with the current environment.
It's not an easy time to be a founder anywhere in the world, and especially in African markets. Consumers are suffering, businesses are suffering. And for VC backed founders specifically, there's been a bit of whiplash, from growth at all costs to kind of profitable, efficient growth. So the question I have for you is just generally, how are you coping? How are you managing that transition as a mature VC-backed company from growth, growth, growth to efficient growth plus profitability?
