Startup Failures in Kenya

The last-mile commerce platform serving rural Kenya raised $52M and shut down in July 2024, leaving 50,000 agent entrepreneurs without their business model.

$125M B2B commerce giant Wasoko imploded when its MaxAB merger fell apart.

Africa's informal market ecommerce platform ran out of road before reaching scale

Africa-Asia remittance pioneer collapsed after founders' assault scandal scared off investors.

East Africa's leading logistics platform ran out of runway in 2023

Pan-African payments giant Cellulant quietly collapsed after TPG refused a lifeline.

Kenya's smallholder credit platform drowned in drought-driven loan defaults.

Africa's first licensed online pharmacy collapsed when infrastructure reality contradicted the pitch deck.

Merchant payments pioneer swallowed by the very M-Pesa ecosystem it relied on.

Africa's event-tech darling had no backup plan when concerts vanished.

COVID killed Kenya's women's fashion platform before it could scale.

Kenya's AI startup that blitzscaled into 8 African markets before the product was ready

Kenyan SME lending platform backed by Women World Banking that could not scale credit quality.

Pan-African cross-border payments unicorn backed by Jeff Bezos and SVB that raised 150 million dollars and entered zombie mode when its bank partner collapsed and investor appetite for Africa fintech evaporated.

Kenya agtech B2B inputs marketplace backed by IFC that spent nine years trying to digitize last-mile fertilizer distribution before shutting down in 2022.

Pan-African freight marketplace ran into the realities of African trucking

East Africa B2B ecommerce for informal retail rebranded to Wasoko then collapsed

Kenyan agri-input credit platform could not collect from smallholder farmers at scale

Kenyan B2B last-mile retail commerce platform backed by Tiger Global that raised 40 million dollars and shut down in 2023 after failing to crack informal retail economics.

Kenyan digital lender killed by the 2019 interest rate cap and predatory lending crackdown

Cross-border trade platform for East African informal traders could not sustain the model

Kenyan B2B payments startup blocked by M-PESA API restrictions and Central Bank licensing

Nairobi ethical fashion marketplace connecting artisans to global buyers ran out of margin

Kenya's intercity bus ticketing platform became a zombie when routes commoditised and margins vanished

East Africa B2B FMCG distribution startup that raised $35M from Tiger Global before collapsing under the weight of perishable logistics and informal trader credit risk.

Nairobi agricultural data startup raised $85M from Google Ventures to predict crop yields globally and shut down in 2023 when the next funding round could not close.

Nairobi's micro-savings fintech couldn't build engagement deep enough to survive Safaricom's M-Shwari expansion

Nairobi coding bootcamp stalled as free online alternatives and employer skepticism mounted

Mobile lending pioneer retreated from its home market

YC-backed affordable meal startup in Kenya shut after 18 months

Kenya farm-to-retailer distribution startup backed by IFC and Creadev that raised $50M and shed over half its workforce in 2022-2023 as perishable logistics economics proved fatal.

Kenyan electric motorcycle startup stalled as battery swap infrastructure proved too expensive to build

African Bitcoin remittance pioneer abandoned Bitcoin entirely

Core banking software for African savings and credit cooperatives

Kenyan solar PAYG pioneer reached 3M customers then could not service debt as collections slowed