Nigerian remittance company Chipper Cash is reportedly considering a sale, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The company, which is one of the best-performing fintechs in Africa was valued at $2 billion in late 2021 after a $100 million Series B funding round led by troubled Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). The firm also had the backing of crypto trading firm FTX, and analysts suspect the downward spiral of these financiers has affected Chipper’s balance sheet.
Chipper Cash CEO Ham Serunjogi has however downplayed the impact of these claims, saying that it’s become normal for the startup to receive requests for mergers and acquisitions.
“It’s been fairly common practice for us to receive various M&A proposals from different parties, which we evaluate to varying degrees. “That being said, we have never sought to be acquired.”
The CEO has also assured customers that the collapse of SVB had an insignificant effect on the operations of Chipper Cash.
“We had a very limited amount of money (only about $1M) held in our SVB account at the time the bank was taken over by the California regulator,” Serunjogi explained, adding that SVB’s funds were delivered immediately. “What is happening now doesn’t change that,” he wrote in a statement on Sunday, a few days after the collapse of SVB. “Additionally, SVB wasn’t the only investor in that round.”
However, Serunjogi acknowledged the role of SVB in the early days of Chipper Cash.
“Five years ago, when I was trying to open Chipper’s first bank account, SVB was the only bank that would accept us,” he wrote. “I know there are countless other startups all doing very important work who would say the same thing.”
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