Kenya's funded startups: where they are now
Distribution collapsed; solar and asset finance made the money
Every Kenya-based startup that raised a single round of — or more in —. Those years are when the money came in, not when companies failed: outcomes are followed up to —, which is why late collapses such as Twiga and KOKO are counted. Of the — that sell something cheaper than what their customers already pay, — are still operating. Of the — that had to match an existing low price, — is.
Outcome by sector
Energy and finance hold up; distribution and logistics do not. Each chip is one company; failures are in red. Hover a chip for what happened.
Owning assets is not what kills a company
Among the asset-heavy companies (own fleets, warehouses, factories, networks or farms), — of — with a poverty premium/penalty are operating, against — of — without one. The exception is Victory Farms, which wins as the lowest-cost producer of a commodity rather than as a middleman. Heavy assets fail when they sit on top of a price someone else sets.
Who makes money and who loses it, by sector
Profitable means a publicly reported profit. Operating means still running, with no published profit. Each chip is one company.
Winning and losing sectors
Bars to the left are companies that failed or were distressed; bars to the right are still operating, with profitable ones in the accent color. Sectors are ordered from most net winners to most net losers. Hover a bar for names.
Every company by name
What the winners have that the losers don't
How many companies in each group have each trait. Darker cells mean more of the group has it.
The terms, in plain words.
- Spend displacement: the product costs less than what the same customers already pay for the same need, so they redirect money instead of finding new money. This is the poverty premium/penalty being removed.
- Price taker: a company with no pricing power, which has to accept the price that cheaper rivals, often informal traders, have already set.
- Essential need: demand that holds up when money is tight (food, energy, transport, health, connectivity). Economists call it inelastic demand.
- Asset-heavy: high capital intensity; the company owns fleets, warehouses, factories, networks or farms.
- Asset-backed debt: borrowing secured on the thing sold or on the stream of customer payments, through lockable devices, repossession rights or securitisation.
- Recurring payments: customers pay daily, weekly or monthly rather than once, which makes revenue predictable enough to borrow against.
- Policy dependence: the business only works while a subsidy, licence or government approval stays in place.
Reading the map. The winners do not have pricing power in the classic sense; they do not charge more than rivals. They charge less than what customers pay today, collect in small recurring amounts, and fund themselves with debt secured on the asset. Every one of the profitable companies has all of these. The losers were mostly price takers. An essential need was not enough on its own: food is as essential as energy, but food distribution offered no saving to remove and no asset to lend against. Owning assets was common among the failures, but it hurt only where the company could not set its price.
Why they failed
Each company's main cause, and the event that finally tipped it over. The cause is what made the business fragile; the trigger, usually a funding round that did not come, is what ended it. A business whose costs fit inside its margin survives a missed round.
Who is making money
Only companies that have publicly reported a profit. The other operating companies do not publish results, so operating should not be read as profitable.
What the profitable ones share.
- Customers pay less than before, or own what they used to rent. Solar replaces kerosene; a financed bike replaces a daily rental.
- The asset carries the debt. A phone that can be locked, a bike that can be repossessed, or a stream of solar payments sold to banks lets them grow on borrowed money instead of spending equity on inventory.
- Credit risk does not go away. Watu's profit collapsed in one year of rising defaults and currency losses before it recovered. Profit in this model depends on collections staying healthy.
All companies
Click a column to sort. The largest round is the biggest single round announced in the window; securitisation figures are receivables purchased.
Method and limits
Who is in. Startups headquartered in Kenya, or with Kenya as their main market, that announced one round of — or more (equity or debt) in —. The window covers when the money was raised; outcomes are followed to the present. It stops where it does so that every company has had at least three years to show how it turned out. Companies funded after the window are left out because it is too early to judge them, and counting them would make the record look better than it is. Rounds and outcomes come from press reports, linked per company in Sources.
How each company is coded.
- Poverty premium/penalty: the extra that poor households pay for the same thing, such as kerosene instead of grid power, tiny pack sizes, or renting a bike daily instead of owning it. C.K. Prahalad called it the poverty penalty. Yes when the product removes it, costing less than what the same customers already spend on the same need (kerosene, diesel, daily bike rental, mobile data). Partial when it saves something real but sells at market price. No when it must match a price already set by low-cost informal operators. Subsidised when it is only cheaper because a third party pays.
- Asset intensity: High when the company owns fleets, warehouses, factories, networks or farms; Medium when it carries inventory or receivables; Low when it is mostly software and people.
- Outcome: Operating, Distressed (merged on weak terms or a deep down round), or Failed (shut, administration or liquidation), as of the date shown.
Left out. Tala and Branch (headquartered outside Kenya, many markets); Cellulant (no round of this size in the window); Asante and Mawingu (rounds below the threshold); Pula, SunCulture's Series B and Roam (their big rounds came in 2024); Sanergy (round size not confirmed).
Limits. The sample is small, so read the pattern as strong evidence, not proof. Operating is not the same as a good return for investors. The coding is my own judgment and is open to challenge row by row. KOKO's round sizes were never disclosed; it is included because it invested several hundred million dollars in Kenya. Lori's round size comes from press reports and was not re-checked against a primary source.
About this research. This study is my own independent work. I did it because billions have gone into African startups, and the record of what that money built is thin. Comments, corrections and conversations are welcome: Peter Muiga, pm@curatedventures.africa.
Curated Ventures is not a fund; it's where I publish my thinking as I move into venture investing. I am open to conversations about the research, and about working together.
Share your thoughts or reach me at pm@curatedventures.africa · Peter Muiga