Techstars-Backed Chimoney Shuts Down After Failing To Crack Distribution

Chimoney, a fintech startup that built a unified API for cross-border payments across 41 currencies, is shutting down, Founder/CEO, Uchi Uchibeke, announced today.

The Nigerian-Canadian startup, which served hundreds of businesses across North America, Africa, and Latin America, raised under USD 1 M over its four-year lifespan, a sum Uchibeke now acknowledges was insufficient for its venture-scale ambitions.

“The product worked,” Uchibeke said in a candid post-mortem. “It was distribution. I spent too much of my time building and not enough time making sure people knew what we built.”

Chimoney emerged from Techstars and secured a FINTRAC MSB license, Uchibeke shared, later becoming one of the first companies in Canada to receive a Payment Service Provider license under the Bank of Canada’s new RPAA regime. It was also among the first production providers of Interledger, the open protocol for connecting disparate payment networks.

A U.S. company paying a freelancer in Lagos often faces the hassle of navigating multiple rails, currencies, and compliance checks. Chimoney wrapped those complexities into a single API supporting bank transfers, mobile money, stablecoins, and Interledger. But regulatory and audit costs across multiple jurisdictions proved unsustainable on flat revenue and thin capital.

Uchibeke explored strategic alternatives before deciding to wind down. “None of them closed on terms that made sense. So I chose to shut down cleanly instead of dragging the company forward on hope.”

He notified investors in February and clients in April. Every client wallet balance is being refunded through August 31, 2026, the founder announced, with migration playbooks published for developers who built on the API.

Notably, Chimoney’s corporate entity and PSP registration are being preserved. “That license is hard to get, and I believe it will only get harder. I am holding on to it,” Uchibeke said.

His takeaway for other founders: “Either raise properly or bootstrap with a profitable beachhead. I tried to do both and did neither well.”

Uchibeke is now building APort, a separate company focused on pre-action authorisation for AI agents, which has already created the Open Agent Passport.