Chipper Cash, a unicorn in the financial technology sector, has announced its “intended acquisition” of the Zoona group, a leading fintech company in Zambia.
“The proposed acquisition,” Laura Kennedy, Vice president for Investment & Corporate Development writes, “will accelerate Chipper’s expansion across Africa.”
The African startup says, together with Zoona it will foster innovation and development of its offerings across payment and remittance services, plus complementary products such as API, disbursements and transfer solutions.
This is Chipper Cash’s first major acquisition since Ham Serunjogi founded the company with Maijid Moujaled in 2018 to offer a no-fee peer-to-peer cross-border payment service in Africa via its app.
For Chipper Cash, this is a chance for it to enter the Zambian market. The acquisition will enable the company “broaden its suite of products to include additional online services and an agent network in order to accelerate meeting its ambition to provide the most trusted and accessible financial products for people living in Africa and beyond.“
Brett Magrath, co-founder and chief executive officer of Zoona, said the purchase will help both companies better serve the people of Africa by combining their resources to better connect consumers and businesses across the continent.
Zoona was founded in 2008 and went on to develop the Tilt service, enabling payments and transfers to any bank or mobile money provider in Zambia via any cash or digital channel, plus a network of more than 450 interoperable agents. Zoona was an early pioneer in the African mobile money payments industry and to date has processed funds totalling more than $3 billion in value. Zoona holds a Payments Systems Business license from the Bank of Zambia.
Serunjogi still serves as the payment company’s President, and so far, has helped it to raise $300 million in venture capital funding and is now valued at $2.2 billion. The Pan-African cross-border payment app is available for use bu customers in Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa and Kenya, as well as in the UK and US.
The deal’s financial terms and agreement is currently unknown. Laura Kennedy, however, noted that the transaction remains subject to closure of the deal and approval by the relevant authorities.
This comes as the Pan-African cross-border payment app launched a Virtual card in order for its Ugandan customers to make international transactions without the need for a bank account.
It announced a partnership in September 2022, with Highnote, the world’s most modern card issuance platform, that will empower US-based Chipper Cash customers to access their Chipper Cash digital wallets to make transactions in the US and abroad that require a card payment, such as eCommerce purchases.
