Taxi hailing company Nopea Ride has announced that it is quitting the Kenyan market. In a statement that was released on Tuesday, November 29, Nopea Ride said that its decision to exit the Kenyan market is the result of one its majority shareholders being declared insolvent.
“Following the announcement that our majority shareholder, EkoRent Oy, has declared insolvency in Finland, we are sad to announce that InfraCo Africa Limited the minority shareholder has now filed for the liquidation of EkoRent Africa Limited in the High Court of Kenya,” the statement said.
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“This is due to the fact that EkoRent Oy was the principal financier of EkoRent Africa Limited and all the technical knowledge on the running of the business lay with EkoRent Oy. A mention date has been set for 13th December 2022.”
Nopea Ride service was first launched in Kenya in August of 2018 under the name Nopia Ride by a Finnish company EkoRent Oy founded in 2014.
At the same time, Nopea has linked its departure from the country to the failure to raise additional funding to support and expand its operations.
“When closing the initial equity round for NopeaRide, we had estimated the number of vehicles needed to break even in Kenya. We were still short of that number by around 20 vehicles and signed an agreement with a financing consultant in February 2022 to help us find the needed financing,” said Nopea.
“Funds would be spent to break even by adding more vehicles in our Nopea fleet, piloting eBoda 2-wheelers that would not remain in our balance sheet and consume our resources as much as 4-wheelers, and to expand our services outside of Nairobi.”