Internal valuation cut ~70% to about $450M after backers FTX and SVB collapsed; sale efforts have not closed
The rise & fall
7 moments · 2018–2024
The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2018
🌱
2018
Founded in San Francisco
Ugandan-born Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian co-founder Maijid Moujaled build a no-fee app for moving money across African borders.
TechCrunch
2021
🦄
2021
Joins the unicorn club
Ribbit, SVB Capital and Bezos Expeditions back the pan-African payments app past $1B.
TechCrunch
2022
📈
2022
The peak: $2.2B on FTX money$2.2B
An FTX-led extension of the late-2021 round marks the high-water mark as 2022 opens.
Forbes
Nov 2022
Nov 2022
FTX implodes
The marquee backer collapses in days; its stake and its halo vanish together.
Forbes
Mar 2023
Mar 2023
Then SVB fails
Months later a second backer, Silicon Valley Bank, is seized — while the naira's devaluation squeezes the core business.
TechCabal
2023
💔
2023
Marked down — out of the club
After FTX, SVB, the naira and a sale process that wouldn't close, investors cut the internal valuation ~70% to about $450M.
TechCabal
2022–24
💬
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2022–24
Glassdoor reviews from the retrenchment counted five layoff rounds in 13 months and roughly $250M burned in a year, and described raises, bonuses and promotions frozen while staff pressed leadership — mostly in vain — for straight answers about runway.
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
Chipper Cash is a pan-African cross-border payments app backed by Ribbit Capital, SVB Capital, Bezos Expeditions and FTX that hit a $2.2B valuation in late 2021. Then FTX and Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, the naira's devaluation squeezed its economics, and investors slashed its internal valuation roughly 70% to about $450M, stripping its unicorn status.
Source: Forbes / Fintech News Africa / TechCabal (pan-African cross-border payments app backed by Ribbit, Deciens, SVB Capital, Bezos Expeditions and FTX; reached a $2.2B valuation in a Nov 2021 round extended by FTX; the collapse of FTX and SVB, naira devaluation and a failed sale process cut its internal valuation ~70% to roughly $450M)
