Zoona Transactions, a Zambian fintech company that helps people pay across borders in Africa, has been purchased by Chipper Cash.
Due to this acquisition, Chipper Cash, which boasts 5 million users, can now offer its clients even more services. These include access to a larger network of agents and enhanced online capabilities. The company sees this as a way to develop its business in Zambia.
Chipper Cash will benefit from buying Zoona because it has “amazing innovation, a strong partner network, goods and services that go well together, and talented in-country teams,” says Laura Kennedy, VP of Corporate Development.
Co-founder and CEO of Zoona, Brett Magrath, sees the acquisition as an opportunity to harness the combined strengths of his business and the one that was bought to become the preferred provider of financial services in Africa.
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When Zoona was established in 2008, it quickly became the leader in Zambia’s expanding IT industry. Since then, Zambians have been able to send and receive money with banks and money transfer services through the company’s Tilt service, digital channel, or any of its more than 450 interoperable agents.
Since its start, the fintech has handled more than $3 billion in transactions, making it a prominent player in Africa’s developing mobile money sector. When the Zambian company decided to concentrate on the business-to-business market in 2020, it sold its operations in Malawi to the payments company Mukuru, based in Cape Town.
“Bringing these companies together under the Chipper umbrella will mean we can open up even more borders, bringing quality financial services to life in more countries and connecting more people across the continent,” Kennedy said.
Read also: The Bank of Ghana authorizes Chipper Cash to facilitate transfers to the U.S.
The Founding Of Chipper Cash
Maijid Moujaled and Ham Serunjoji, the current president and CEO, started Chipper Cash in 2018 so that people in Africa could send and receive money for free, both domestically and internationally. After collecting $300 million in venture capital investment, its current value is $2.2 billion.
In addition to the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US), you may be able to use its services in Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa, and Kenya.
As they unveiled their Series C investment, Chipper Cash’s CEO, Ham Serunjogi, told TechCrunch that it was “the most valuable private business in Africa,” though he did not specify how much.
Because the phrase isn’t clear, there have been many arguments about whether or not Chipper Cash is a unicorn. Serunjogi knows it’s because of the expansion round, which put Chipper Cash’s value at just under $2 billion.
Chipper Cash was evasive when asked about the arrangement’s financial specifics. Authorities must approve the acquisition deal before it can be put into action.
What to know about Zoona
This mobile technology business called Zoona creates services like agent payments, electronic voucher payments, and money transfers. It uses the drive of young businesspeople and the power of cutting-edge technology to bring safe financial services to poor areas all over Africa.
When he co-founded Zoona, one of Africa’s first fintech startups, in Zambia in 2009, Mike Quinn had no money saved up. Additionally, he had $50,000 in student loan debt.
During one of his early cash flow issues, Quinn had to ask his retired parents to put their home up for mortgage in order to wire him a $100,000 loan.
Even so, he and his co-founders were able to turn Zoona into one of Africa’s first fintech success stories. They processed more than $2.5 billion in transactions, gave over $26 million in income to 3,000 microbusiness owners in Zambia and Malawi, and attracted millions of dollars in investment.
Then, after serving as the company’s CEO for a remarkable decade, he resigned last year, leaving Zoona in the care of his co-founders. Since then, he has made plans for the future and written a book on his experiences called “Failing to Win.” In the first of a special series of interviews with NextBillion, we spoke with Quinn, and we questioned him about the lessons he has learned from Zoona’s successes and failures.
“Zoona’s micro-franchise agent model, customer-centric approach, and purpose-driven culture have built strong foundations for financial inclusion in Zambia and Malawi. “The future is now interoperability, and Zoona is launching a B2B fintech platform for banks and financial service providers who transact with the underserved.” Mike Quinn stated
Zoona was established in 2009 and is currently located in Cape Town, South Africa. It has 11 investors, including RippleWorks and the MasterCard Foundation. Competitors of Zoona include BitGo, MobiKwik, Airwallex, Ant Group, Toss, and 14 more.