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 · 143 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 →

Swift Lab

Here lies Swift Lab. It built cargo drones in Nairobi to fly medicine where roads do not reach, and even won over the national post office. But local manufacturing costs, aviation red tape, and scarce hardware capital kept it grounded at the pilot phase.

2013 – June 2024Health Tech🇰🇪 Kenya

Wala

Here lies Wala. Its Dala token let unbanked users in South Africa and Uganda send money by phone, 150,000 of them within months. But cash-in rails kept failing, scammers gamed the rewards, and eight months pitching 100 investors through crypto winter raised nothing. It switched off in June 2019.

2017 – July 2019Crypto & Web3🇿🇦 South Africa,🇺🇬 Uganda

Zazuu

Here lies Zazuu. It gathered seventeen remittance providers so Africans abroad could compare rates and send money home for less. It found the cheapest transfer for everyone except itself; with no follow-on round, the marketplace closed with £3,300 to its name.

2018 – November 2023Fintech🇳🇬 Nigeria,🇬🇭 Ghana

Zoto

Here lies Zoto. It sold airtime and payments to over a million Nigerians from one app. Then transactions started failing and users' money vanished, and the app offered only a notice that service was 'temporarily not available.' It never came back online.

2015 – August 2018Fintech🇳🇬 Nigeria

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

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

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

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

Mocality

Here lies Mocality. Backed by Naspers, it paid agents to build a free business directory across Kenya and Nigeria. The directory grew past 170,000 listings but the revenue never did, and the owner switched both markets off on one day. No entry could list its own future.

2009 – February 2013Marketing & CRM🇰🇪 Kenya,🇳🇬 Nigeria

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

Pivo

Here lies Pivo. It banked and lent to Nigeria's small logistics firms, kept a 98 percent repayment rate, and faced no real rival in supply-chain finance. What it could not route around was a rift between its two founders, the one relationship the business could not restructure.

2021 – December 2023Fintech🇳🇬 Nigeria

Lazerpay

Here lies Lazerpay. It let over three thousand businesses accept crypto and stablecoin payments across Africa. But the bear market froze its next round; layoffs came first, then the full stop, and merchants were told to withdraw their funds before the gateway closed.

2021 – April 2023Crypto & Web3🇳🇬 Nigeria

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

Copia Global

Here lies Copia Global. It reached rural Kenya's shoppers through a network of fifty thousand local agents, becoming one of the country's best-funded commerce startups. When fresh capital stopped coming, the agents were let go, the trucks and warehouses sold, and the last order went undelivered.

2013 – May 2024E-commerce & Retail🇰🇪 Kenya

Afrostream

Here lies Afrostream. It streamed African, African-American, and Caribbean film to viewers across nearly thirty countries. Licensing costs climbed, a marketing budget no match for Netflix drained the tank, and Series B talks collapsed. The credits rolled before the funding did.

2014 – September 2017Media & Entertainment🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire,🇧🇯 Benin,🇧🇫 Burkina Faso+18

Hytch

Here lies Hytch. It launched to cut ride-hailing costs through carpooling, drew six hundred users in a week, then pivoted to delivering for small businesses. But it ran on friends-and-family money and undercut prices it couldn't afford; nine months in, the ride ended.

2021 – February 2023Logistics & Supply Chain🇳🇬 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

KippaPay (The Product)

Here lies KippaPay. It handed Nigerian merchants POS terminals to take payments, pay bills, and move money. Then the naira slid and took the hardware margins with it; six months on, its parent pulled the plug and let the terminals go quiet.

2021 – October 2023Fintech🇳🇬 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

Paxful

Here lies Paxful. For a decade it matched buyers and sellers of Bitcoin across emerging markets using local money. Then the compliance bill for its founders' early shortcuts came due, and no counterparty could cover it. Trading closed for good.

2015 – October 2025Crypto & Web3🇳🇬 Nigeria,🇬🇭 Ghana,🇰🇪 Kenya+1

Fluidcoins

Here lies Fluidcoins. It built crypto payment rails for African businesses through Flip and Fluidshop, letting them hold stablecoins and accept payments. When the 2022 bear market froze follow-on funding, eighteen months of runway ran dry and the whole company transferred to Blockfinex to keep the lights on.

2021 – February 2023Crypto & Web3🇳🇬 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

Tulaa

Here lies Tulaa. It connected Kenyan smallholder farmers to input financing and buyers for their harvest through mobile tools and agent networks. After its 2018 seed round the updates stopped, the site and accounts went quiet, and no closing word was ever given.

2016 – October 2019Fintech🇰🇪 Kenya
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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