Techstars-backed fintech Chimoney shuts down, to refund customer balances

Chimoney, a Nigerian-founded fintech that built cross-border payment infrastructure for businesses, has shut down, citing a lack of capital to sustain operations.

In a May 1 email seen by TechCabal, the Canada-based startup told customers it had stopped processing new transactions and integrations and had begun refunding customer balances. 

“As of May 1, 2026, Chimoney has ceased all new transactions and integrations,” the email read. “No balance on file: No action needed on your end. This is our final operational email.” 

Businesses that relied on Chimoney’s payment rails will now have to find alternatives, exposing the fragility of building on startup infrastructure: when the provider goes down, so does the payment rail.

Founded in 2022 by Uchi Uchibeke, Chimoney enabled businesses to pay freelancers and vendors in 41 currencies across Africa, North America, and Latin America. The startup provided businesses with a single API for cross-border payments, supporting bank transfers, mobile money, airtime, gift cards, and stablecoin rails for off-ramps. 

In 2023, it joined the Techstars Toronto accelerator. Chimoney raised $280,000 in total funding, according to startup directory Crunchbase, excluding undisclosed grants. Uchibeke said this figure was closer to $1 million.

“Under $1 million is too thin for a venture-scale fintech across multiple jurisdictions,” Uchibeke said in an emailed response to TechCabal. “I should have either raised meaningfully more or bootstrapped properly with a profitable beachhead. Trying to operate at venture scale on bootstrap capital was the wrong strategy.”

Chimoney notified investors of its planned wind-down in February 2026 and clients in April, according to Uchibeke. The company also published migration guides for developers before halting transactions on April 30. 

Uchibeke noted that client wallet balances are being refunded through a self-service dashboard that will remain open until August 31, 2026. Clients can select their preferred payment method, submit account details, and complete two-factor authentication. Chimoney said refunds are being processed within seven to 14 business days.

Uchibeke added that unclaimed balances after August 2026 will be transferred to the relevant provincial unclaimed property offices, in line with Canada’s framework for dormant and unclaimed balances.

“When revenue stayed flat, and there was no clear path to additional capital, the responsible decision was to wind down while we could still return every client dollar and meet every regulatory obligation,” he said. 

Chimoney processed tens of thousands of transactions for hundreds of business and enterprise clients, according to Uchibeke, although he declined to disclose exact figures. He said the company never solved distribution at scale, partly because too much focus was placed on product development over customer acquisition.

The company had positioned itself as an early mover in API-first cross-border payouts and said it was one of the first production Interledger payment providers globally. In 2025, it attempted to reposition itself around AI agent payment infrastructure, allowing AI agents to hold wallets and move money under policy controls.

“The thinking was that the convergence of agentic AI, stablecoins, and our existing infrastructure (Interledger wallets, multi-chain support, licenced rails, identity layer) put us in a defensible position,” Uchibeke said. “We shipped it, [but] it did not generate enough traction in time. The distribution and customer acquisition didn’t move fast enough on the runway we had left.”

The pivot coincided with Chimoney securing a Payment Service Provider (PSP) licence under the Bank of Canada’s Retail Payment Activities Act (RPAA) in November 2025, allowing it to hold end-user funds. 

Despite the shutdown, Uchibeke said Chimoney’s parent entity, Chi Technologies Inc., will remain active and retain its PSP licence under dormant status.

Chimoney is the latest venture Uchibeke has wound down, following the closure of AfricaHacks in 2023, a developer-focused community platform that later evolved into the World Innovation League (WII), a Canadian non-profit focused on digital skills and workforce development. 

He has also built several other products, including Oruly, a hybrid AI-and-human task outsourcing platform, and Food Waste Log, a food-waste tracking tool for restaurants. 

Uchibeke is now building APort, a separate product that requires AI agents to request and receive authorisation before they move money, change data, or trigger other sensitive actions on behalf of businesses. He said the new company is independent from Chimoney and carries none of its customer balances or regulatory obligations.