Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has backed an African startup in what seems to be his first known investment in the continent, the startup being Chipper Cash which is a cross-border payments platform that has 3 million users across African nations including Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, Kenya, and Ghana.

Bezos Expeditions, an eponymous investment vehicle of Jeff Bezos, chipped into a $30 million Series B round for Chipper Cash that was led by the venture capital firm Ribbit Capital. With the investment, Chipper Cash says it’ll expand into more countries and widen its product suite.

Currently with 3 million users, Chipper Cash says it facilitates 80,000 cross-border transactions daily. Although the company originates from and focuses on Africa, it maintains its main headquarters in the American city of San Francisco.

Chipper Cash was founded by Ham Serunjogi, a Ugandan, and Maijid Moujaled, a Ghanaian, just in 2018. Before now, the company had raised a $13.8 million Series A round just six months ago.

Bezos’ investment in an African startup puts him in a small league of big-name entrepreneurs and businessmen who have backed startups from the continent, with other notable members of this league being Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and the former US Vice President Al Gore.

Africa has long been a breeding ground for many fintech startups. Just recently, the continent scored a big exit when Stripe acquired the Nigerian payments startup Paystack for a reported price of over $200 million.

Photo: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos|by national museum of american history, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

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