FTX-funded Chipper Cash, a cross-border payment startup with an emphasis on Africa, lays off employees one year after raising $150 million.
As the effects of the economic slump intensify, Chipper Cash, which is backed by the troubled cryptocurrency exchange FTX, joins the growing list of firms that have laid off their employees.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange platform, FTX, led the $150 million Series C round when the company made the news. A few weeks later, the company announced the purchase of Zoona, a Zambian fintech firm.
In a post on LinkedIn, the company’s vice president of engineering, Erin Fusaro, said that this was true. Although she was not impacted by the layoffs, according to Fusaro, many of her close friends and coworkers were. Fusaro expressed worry for her coworkers affected by the downsizing. She also applied for employment on their behalf through this channel. She penned:
A significant number of Chipper employees were laid off this morning. While I was not among them, many of my close colleagues and friends were. If you’re looking for talented engineering leadership, engineers, technical program managers, analysts, or IT staff, please comment here, and I’ll do my best to start connecting people. “To those let go today, please feel free and welcome to DM me; I’ll help you find a soft spot to land if I can.”
The firm hasn’t made an official statement about the situation as of right now. Even though the exact number of workers affected by the change is unknown, it is thought to be a large portion of the company’s workforce.
Read also: The Bank of Ghana authorizes Chipper Cash to facilitate transfers to the U.S.
Why did FTX go with Chipper Cash?
The collaboration with Chipper Cash’s Network API is another case where it works well. Basically, it lets developers use the business’s infrastructure to collect and send payments into Chipper wallets. To put it simply, FTX users in Africa can “Pay with Chipper Cash” on the cryptocurrency trading platform.
“That’s going to be a compelling use case for both of our companies as we keep scaling and as FTX keeps scaling their geographical coverage,” the CEO said. “They do some of the most innovative work in the crypto space, so working with them is going to be quite exciting.”
In markets like the United States, Europe, India, and Latin America, closing back-to-back equity rounds in months has, to some extent, become the standard. However, in Africa, it’s still barely gaining momentum.
Over the past year, investors have put a lot of money into startups like the Nigerian open banking platform Mono, the neobank Kuda, and the automotive technology company Autochek. This shows that investors are very interested in African technology, especially fintech.
The industry continues to receive the most funding on the continent. Chipper Cash, the second most valuable startup on the continent after OPay, became the continent’s fourth unicorn this year, joining Flutterwave, OPay, and Wave. This means that the continent has officially made the most unicorns. Andela, the tech talent company, became the fifth overall unicorn in late September.
Chipper cash
One of Africa’s unicorns, Chipper Cash, is worth $2.2 billion as of 2021. Sam Bankman-Fried ran the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX. In November 2017, the fintech company raised $150 million in a Series C expansion round.
The funding came just six months after SVB Capital, the corporate venture capital arm of SVB Financial Group, led Chipper Cash’s $100 million Series C round. Since its launch, Deciens Capital, Ribbit Capital, and Bezos Expeditions have contributed over $305 million to Chipper Cash as investors.