African cross-border funds platform Chipper Money performed a second spherical of layoffs final Friday simply ten weeks after it minimize roughly 12.5% of its workforce (affecting its engineering staff probably the most).
The corporate’s V.P. of income shared the information on LinkedIn, saying “all areas” throughout Chipper Money’s markets had been impacted this time. “Friday was a tragic day for Chipper Cash, as many gifted folks had been let go,” his put up read. “For my community: there may be an extremely gifted pool of people throughout the U.S., U.Ok., South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, and extra. They’re all extremely skilled in managing very complicated, multicultural groups and initiatives in fintech. All areas have been impacted, from Recruiting, HR, Advertising, Pricing, Product, Analytics, UX, Analysis, Authorized, and extra.”
In line with a number of local outlets, Chipper Money relieved nearly one-third of its workforce, about 100 staff. Chipper Money didn’t affirm the precise variety of roles affected when TechCrunch reached out however mentioned the experiences are comparatively correct. Thus, along with the first round of layoffs, the five-year-old funds and crypto startup has let go of over 150 staff within the final three months to chop prices amid a torrid interval for personal and public tech corporations globally.
“The final two years had been a interval of fast progress and scaling for us as a enterprise and, to mirror this, our international headcount grew by round 250 folks,” mentioned CEO Ham Serunjogi in a press release to TechCrunch. “Nonetheless, given the macroeconomic local weather, we’re narrowing our present focus to core markets and merchandise – concentrating our efforts the place we all know we will thrive. With this hyper-focused prioritization, the truth is that we, sadly, want a smaller staff at Chipper.”
Additionally, Chipper Money denied reports that it shut down its crypto division, which homes crypto merchandise, one in every of its three foremost merchandise, together with FX and airtime. “Chipper is among the largest crypto platforms in Africa immediately, and it stays one in every of our fastest-growing merchandise. We’re enthusiastic about the way forward for crypto in Africa and proceed to spend money on the product,” Serunjogi added.
Serunjogi based Chipper Money in 2018 with Maijid Moujaled to supply Africans with a no-fee peer-to-peer cross-border fee service. The corporate says it has over 5 million prospects throughout Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa and Kenya — and extra just lately, the U.S. and U.Ok., the place the FTX-backed startup expanded final yr to facilitate peer-to-peer cash motion from each international locations to pick areas in Africa.
Final November, the African cross-border fee app introduced that it could acquire Zambian fintech company Zoona to broaden into Southern Africa. And the next month, within the wake of FTX’s chapter, we reported that the African fintech, which has raised over $300 million from buyers together with the defunct crypto change, SVB Capital and Ribbit Capital, noticed its valuation slashed from $2 billion to $1.25 billion, in keeping with documents displaying Alameda’s enterprise capital portfolio.
Chipper Money provides to a listing of Africa-focused corporations and crypto corporations which have laid off staff in latest months, together with Jumia (900 staff), Yoco (15% of its workforce, in keeping with sources), and Luno (35% of its workforce).
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