Five months after running out of capital, Chimoney gets a new owner

CapitalSage Vantage Limited, a subsidiary of CapitalSage Holdings, has completed its acquisition of Chimoney, the Nigerian-founded payments startup that announced its shutdown in May after running out of capital to sustain operations, Uchi Uchebeke, Chimoney’s founder, told TechCabal.

The all-cash acquisition ends five months of uncertainty for the Techstars-backed startup, which had suspended transactions, begun refunding customer balances, and faced the possibility of a permanent shutdown.

“CapitalSage Vantage Limited has acquired Chi Technologies Inc., the company behind Chimoney,” Uchibeke said in a statement.  “Every investor has been repaid in full, and the team has received its transaction proceeds. Thank you to Abiola Bawuah [group chief executive officer, CapitalSage Holdings] and John Alamu [founder and group managing director, CapitalSage Holdings] for completing the acquisition and taking the business forward.”

In total, 31 individuals and firms received payments from the deal, according to Uchibeke. The company did not disclose the deal value.

The transaction completes an unexpected turnaround for the Techstars-backed startup, which informed customers in May that it had stopped processing new transactions and integrations, citing insufficient capital. Four weeks later, CapitalSage signed an agreement to acquire the business.

The deal brings Chimoney back into operation under CapitalSage, with its payment infrastructure accepting new clients and processing transactions. Its consumer-facing app has also been relaunched as Tiki, a remittance service targeting customers in Canada and the United Kingdom.

On its website, CapitalSage lists both Chimoney and Tiki among the businesses operated under its CapitalSage Vantage subsidiary, which the company says focuses on building cross-border payments and other financial services. Tiki will offer remittance services, connecting customers in Canada and the UK to recipients in African markets, including Nigeria and The Gambia.

Under its new ownership, Chimoney has resumed accepting clients and processing transactions. Its business-to-business (B2B) payment infrastructure will continue offering application programming interfaces (APIs) for cross-border collections, payouts, and multi-currency wallets.

“Chimoney provides the functions businesses need on both sides of a payment: collecting funds, managing balances, and paying recipients,” Uchibeke said. “Its APIs allow developers to integrate those functions into other products, while its business platform supports direct use.”

The arrangement gives CapitalSage access to Chimoney’s Canadian payments infrastructure. It also allows the group to expand its cross-border remittance business through an existing technology platform.

On May 1, Chimoney informed customers that it had stopped processing new transactions and integrations, citing insufficient capital. The company also began refunding customer balances, leaving businesses that relied on its payment infrastructure without alternative providers.

The shutdown followed years of struggling to grow its customer base and raise sufficient funding, despite building an infrastructure platform that enabled businesses to make payments across 41 currencies.

In June, four weeks after the shutdown announcement, CapitalSage signed an agreement to acquire the business, offering Chimoney a route back into operation. The acquisition was structured in phases to accommodate Canadian regulatory requirements governing changes in ownership of payment service providers.

Uchibeke told TechCabal in July that Chimoney’s biggest challenges were customer acquisition and the liquidity required to sustain payment operations across multiple currencies.

“The biggest issue was distribution, but also related to that is liquidity. We built a platform to orchestrate multiple payment methods. And to make that happen, we need to maintain float across multiple regions and currencies,” he said.

Uchibeke said Chimoney would have needed about $3 million in additional capital to achieve its growth ambitions. Revenue from existing clients was insufficient to sustain the business, and maintaining liquidity across several markets placed further pressure on its finances.

CapitalSage’s acquisition offered access to additional liquidity and an established financial services network. The group operates businesses including Kolomoni Microfinance Bank and has a presence in Nigeria, The Gambia, the United Kingdom, and other markets.

The deal gives CapitalSage a foothold in Canada’s payments market through Chimoney’s existing infrastructure and regulatory registrations. Before its shutdown, Chimoney, founded in 2022, had secured registration as a payment service provider with the Bank of Canada and as a money services business with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), Canada’s financial intelligence agency.

In July, Uchibeke told TechCabal that all five members of Chimoney’s team had received offers to stay after the acquisition. According to him, employees, including former staff members—shareholders of Scrim, a social payments startup Chimoney acquired in 2023—would benefit financially from the transaction.

Uchibeke, who remains involved in a six-month transition, is building APort, a separate startup developing authorisation infrastructure for AI agents.

“I am now building APort, while Chimoney moves forward under its new owner,” Uchibeke said. “I have spent years building and operating those systems. It is the background I bring to the next problem.”

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