Kippa
“Can a Nigerian merchant bookkeeping app become the financial operating system for African SMEs before runway expires?”
Founded2021
HQLagos, Nigeria
FoundersKennedy Ekezie-Joseph, Duke Ekezie, Jephthah Uche
Total raised$11.6M
Latest roundSeed, September 2022
IndustryVertical SaaS / SMB Bookkeeping (Africa)
The story
Kippa launched in 2021 as a finance-management and bookkeeping app for Nigerian small merchants, in the same wave as Kudi, Bumpa and OZÉ. After raising $8.4M seed in 2022, it sought to layer financial products (payments, lending) onto its merchant base. PitchBook now records the company as out of business, indicating the embedded-finance expansion did not reach durable scale.
Last 12 months
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Product timeline
2021
Launched as bookkeeping app for Nigerian small merchants· launch
2021
Raised $3.2M pre-seed led by Target Global· funding
2022
Raised $8.4M seed to expand into financial products for SMEs· funding
2025
Listed as out of business per PitchBook· shutdown
The stack
0 layers disclosed in Kippa’s embedded-finance stack
Accounting gap: none