Built for Africa. Now Dead.

A minute of silence to the African software products that are no longer operating. Learn what they built, what led to their closure, and which alternatives continue to serve their users today.

African Software Shutdowns · 142 products

The Graveyard is an editorial archive. Each fate describes what happened to a product as an independent service, while the record separates documented facts from community opinion. How the Graveyard works →

BuyCoins Pro

Here lies BuyCoins Pro. It gave Nigeria's technical traders order books and currency pairs atop the BuyCoins app. But there was never enough volume to fill their orders, and between the central bank's crypto ban and the post-FTX chill, its owner wound the Pro tier down.

2017 – January 2024Crypto & Web3🇳🇬 Nigeria

Vibra

Here lies Vibra. It set out to bring peer-to-peer crypto trading to Africans through verified merchants and paid tutors. But users couldn't clear KYC or get their withdrawals out, and the $400-a-class tutor scheme cost more than it returned. Nigeria logged off first.

2021 – October 2023Crypto & Web3🇳🇬 Nigeria

Edukoya

Here lies Edukoya. It taught 80,000 students with live online classes on a record edtech pre-seed round. But families short on devices, data and disposable income never became paying scale. The final bell rang, and it returned what capital was left.

2021 – February 2025EdTech🇳🇬 Nigeria

Mxit

Here lies Mxit. Born in 2005 as an SMS game, it became the chat app of a South African generation, 7.5 million strong at its peak. Then smartphones arrived without a Mxit worth opening, users left for WhatsApp, and it sent its last message in 2016.

2005 – October 2021Communication & Social🇿🇦 South Africa

Lipa Later

Here lies Lipa Later. It let Kenyans buy now and pay later, then bought an e-commerce platform to grow faster. Unpaid staff, chasing suppliers and a lost court case caught up first. For its own bills, later never came.

2018 – March 2025E-commerce & Retail🇰🇪 Kenya

Jumia Food

Here lies Jumia Food. For a decade it carried meals to doorsteps across seven African markets, until its parent chose profit over the round trip. The delivery was cancelled mid-route, and riders were left with earnings the app would no longer release.

2013 – December 2023E-commerce & Retail🇳🇬 Nigeria,🇩🇿 Algeria,🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire+4

Showmax

Here lies Showmax. Africa's homegrown streaming service brought local stories and live sport to millions, then reached the series finale nobody queued. Canal+ cancelled the standalone show and moved the library to DStv Stream.

2015 – April 2026Media & Entertainment🇿🇦 South Africa

VMedKit

Here lies VMedKit. It brought VR exposure therapy to Nigerian clinics, treating PTSD, phobias and anxiety on Oculus headsets. Costly hardware, a shortage of localized 3D content, and slow uptake among VR-trained clinicians held it back, and after its 2019 high point it faded from view.

2018 – June 2021Health Tech🇳🇬 Nigeria

Collect Africa

Here lies Collect Africa. For four years it let Nigerian SMEs collect payments across transfers, POS, QR codes and links from one dashboard. Its founders found a bigger bet in stablecoins and closed it on purpose, redirecting every hand to Autospend.

2021 – August 2025Fintech🇳🇬 Nigeria

Cova

Here lies Cova. It gathered every account, investment, and coin into one dashboard for a person's money. But few wanted to plan for passing assets on after death — the very use case it was built for — and traction stayed thin. Its founders stopped with runway to spare.

2021 – January 2024Fintech🇨🇲 Cameroon,🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire

OyaPay

Here lies OyaPay. It let offline Nigerian businesses take payments and forward orders, with or without a smartphone. When outside capital was needed, the founder and his sole family investor spent months unable to agree on diluting one stake. The impasse never settled, and in February 2019 he called it quits.

2017 – February 2019Fintech🇳🇬 Nigeria

Africa Courier Express (ACE)

Here lies Africa Courier Express. It built last-mile delivery and pay-on-delivery collection across five Nigerian cities. But bad roads, costly vehicles, and cash-collection risk wore it down while its founders steered toward a new fintech, Lidya. No rider was assigned for the last leg.

2013 – March 2018Logistics & Supply Chain🇳🇬 Nigeria

Medsaf

Here lies Medsaf. It connected Nigerian hospitals and pharmacies to verified drug makers to fight counterfeits. When its Series A never closed and its bank line was pulled, the cash ran out, and a last-minute acquisition collapsed before it could refill.

2016 – March 2025Health Tech🇳🇬 Nigeria

Bongalow

Here lies Bongalow. It helped diaspora and local buyers save, compare home loans, and rent their way toward owning property in Nigeria. But mortgage rates above twenty percent and no long-term debt capital left it with a slick app and nothing affordable to sell.

2019 – October 2023Fintech🇳🇬 Nigeria

Bundle Africa

Here lies Bundle Africa's exchange. For three years it let Africans send, save, and trade cash and crypto, moving some fifty million dollars a month. As the continent's crypto market cooled, it closed the trading floor and moved its people to Cashlink. The rails remain.

2021 – July 2023Crypto & Web3🇳🇬 Nigeria

Milezmore

Here lies Milezmore. Spun out of Brimore, it built warehousing and last-mile delivery tuned for Egyptian e-commerce. When its parent and sole backer hit funding trouble, the deliveries stopped and no new route was assigned. It wound down alongside the company that made it.

2021 – February 2023E-commerce & Retail🇪🇬 Egypt

Baia Group

Here lies Baia. It turned informal cash supply chains into a messaging-based ledger for micro-merchants and their suppliers. The ledger balanced everyone's books but its own; shareholders swapped their equity for warrants and the venture was folded into a holding company.

2019 – December 2023E-commerce & Retail🇰🇪 Kenya

Float Africa

Here lies Float. It promised to close the cash-flow gap for African SMBs, then quietly gambled client deposits on black-market naira-to-USDT trades. A broker vanished with a million dollars, the naira sank, and the liquidity company ran dry. Six million in client funds stayed frozen.

2020 – September 2023Fintech🇿🇦 South Africa,🇬🇭 Ghana

Bonto Kenya

Here lies Bonto. It moved money in and out of Kenya, just eight months after finally winning its remittance licence. Then FX margins thinned to nothing and compliance costs climbed, until the only rational transfer left was the one to the exit.

2022 – September 2025Fintech🇰🇪 Kenya

FoodCourt

Here lies FoodCourt. It put several virtual restaurants in one basket and delivered more than a million meals. Then salaries, vendor bills, and kitchen economics arrived at the same table. The last order was a shutdown, with no rider assigned.

2021 – April 2026Quick Commerce🇳🇬 Nigeria

Gigbanc

Here lies Gigbanc. It helped Africans get paid globally and withdraw locally, then made one final transfer to the startup afterlife. This transfer is final. Withdrawals are no longer supported.

2023 – July 2026Fintech🇳🇬 Nigeria

Livestock Wealth

Here lies Livestock Wealth. It let South Africans invest in cattle, crops, and macadamia trees. The assets could grow on trees or walk on four legs. Liquidity, unfortunately, did neither.

2015 – May 2026Agri Tech🇿🇦 South Africa
About the archive

How the Graveyard works

The Graveyard is an editorial archive. Each fate describes what happened to a product as an independent service, while the record separates documented facts from community opinion.

Read our editorial standards →

What belongs here

Products that shut down, were deliberately sunset, were absorbed into another company or brand, or are confirmed dormant.

How records are verified

We review company announcements, founder statements, credible reporting, archived pages, and other public evidence.

What each record explains

Complete records document the timeline, outcome, contributing causes, lessons, cited sources, and active alternatives where available.

Frequently asked questions about the Liners Startups Graveyard.

The Liners Graveyard is a documented archive of African software products that no longer operate as independent products. Each complete record explains when the product operated, how it ended, what contributed to the outcome, and which alternatives remain active.

A product may be included when it has shut down, been discontinued by its owner, been absorbed into another company or brand, or remained dormant long enough that it no longer appears to operate. We distinguish those outcomes on each record rather than calling every case a failure.

We review official company announcements, founder statements, credible reporting, archived pages, and other public evidence. Available citations are listed in the Sources section of the product record, and records can be corrected as better evidence emerges.

Shut down means the product's operations ended. Sunset means its owner deliberately discontinued it. Absorbed means it stopped operating independently after a rebrand, merger, or acquisition. Dormant means there are strong signs that the product is inactive, but no definitive closure announcement.

Surviving alternatives are active products with meaningful overlap in category, features, markets, and use case. They use the same alternatives method as the rest of Liners, and placement is not sold.

Yes. Use the Suggest a correction action on the product page to tell us what needs to change and include a supporting source where possible. Our researchers review corrections before updating a record.

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