Fintech has always been seen as a solution to one of Africa’s longstanding problems: payments. The market opportunity is clear, as 8 of Africa’s 9 unicorns are in this sector.
The arrival of fintech in Africa can be traced to the 2000s, with the launch of M-Pesa in Kenya in 2007 and Mtn Mobile Money in 2009, before 80% of Africans lacked access to traditional banking. Then came 2011 with diversification into payments, remittances, and early digital lending. It was an era marked by the rise of startups like Paga and Interswitch and the emergence of unicorns such as Flutterwave (2016), Paystack (2015), and OPay (2018).
Amid all of these, some fintech startups launched with unique products to advance financial inclusion or address infrastructure issues, but did not succeed due to factors such as a young ecosystem, founder conflicts, and competition.
There is little evidence for the 2010–2014 gap, as the African VC-backed fintech ecosystem barely existed before 2015. This article spotlights notable fintech startups that shut down, along with the ideas behind them. Upcoming founders can borrow ideas from the list and rework them.
Read Also: 10 African VC firms you should know in 2026
The startups and the models that failed
- Okra
Country: Nigeria | Raised: $16.5M | Founded: 2019 | Closed: 2025 | Founders: Fara Ashiru Jituboh and David Peterside.
Business model: Open banking API infrastructure — allowed developers and businesses to securely connect Nigerian bank accounts to third-party apps (Africa’s equivalent of Plaid).
Revenue model: API usage fees and transaction commissions charged to business clients and served fintechs, lenders, insurers, and neobanks.
Why it failed: Naira devaluation made cloud infrastructure costs (billed in USD) prohibitive. A late pivot to Nebula ( in-house naira-priced cloud alternative to AWS) failed when AWS began offering local-currency billing. The monetisation of core open-banking APIs was slower than investors expected. Wound down in May 2025; returned an estimated $4–5.5M to investors.
- Lidya
Country: Nigeria | Raised: $16.45M | Founded: 2016 | Closed: 2025 | Founders: Tunde Kehinde and Ercin Eksin.
Business model: Digital SME lending — collateral-free loans of $500–$50K to small and medium businesses, using AI-driven credit scoring (bank statements, mobile money data) to approve loans within 24 hours. Later pivoted to Lidya Collect, a B2B debt recovery SaaS product.
Why it failed: Expansion into Poland and the Czech Republic (2019) proved too costly and never turned a profit. European operations shut down in 2023. Lidya Collect failed to restore cash flow. CEO Tunde Kehinde and CTO both left in 2024; the Portugal tech team disbanded due to unpaid salaries. Customers reported frozen funds. Severe financial distress was announced in October 2025.
- Lipa Later
Country: Kenya | Raised: $15.4M | Founded: 2018 | Closed: 2025 | Founders: Eric Muli and Michael Maina
Business model: Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) for East Africa — hire-purchase consumer credit enabling customers to acquire goods (electronics, appliances, smartphones) from retail partners like Carrefour and pay in monthly instalments. Lipa Later paid merchants upfront and collected repayments using proprietary ML-based credit scoring.
Why it failed: Acquired the struggling e-commerce platform Sky.Garden for KES 250M (Dec 2023), which strained liquidity. Failed to raise additional capital in 2024 despite targeting KES 2B more. Could not meet payroll and supplier obligations. Placed under formal administration on March 24, 2025, under Kenya’s Insolvency Act.
- Bento Africa
Country: Nigeria | Raised: $3.1M | Founded: 2019 | Closed: 2025 | Founders: Ebun Okubanjo
Business model: Payroll and HR management SaaS — automated payroll processing, tax remittance, pension contributions and employee benefits for African businesses. Positioned as Africa’s Deel; expanded into Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda.
Why it failed: Allegations of tax and pension fraud. Triggered investigations by the Lagos State Inland Revenue Service (LIRS) and the EFCC. CEO Ebun Okubanjo resigned; the entire engineering team disbanded over unpaid salaries. Major clients (including Moniepoint and Paystack) terminated contracts. Operations halted in February 2025.
- Raise
Country: Kenya | Raised: $25K | Founded: 2018 | Closed: 2025 | Founders: Marvin Coleby, Tina Nyamache, and Eugene Mutai.
Business model: Equity management platform — cap table management, equity issuance, investor relations and compliance tools for African startups and SMEs. Functionally, Carta for Africa.
Why it failed: After seven years, product-market fit was not achieved at the scale needed for sustainability. Insufficient demand from the African startup market for a dedicated cap table tool. Migrated all users to Carta upon closure in September 2025.
- Collect Africa
Country: Nigeria | Raised: $135K | Founded: 2021 | Closed: 2025 | Founders: Abraham Ojes and Wale Martins.
Business model: Payments orchestration for merchants — aggregated transfers, POS, QR codes, payment links and direct debits into a single merchant-facing dashboard. Processed over $4M in transactions for approximately 5,000 businesses.
Why it failed: Founders made a strategic decision to pivot to a new stablecoin project called Autospend. Framed as an opportunity-driven move rather than financial distress, the product was officially wound down on August 31, 2025.
- Joovlin
Country: Nigeria | Raised: $100K | Founded: 2020 | Closed: 2025 | Founders: Kingsley Nwose, Yusuf Olalere, and Lucky Mark.
Business model: Retail digitisation for micro-suppliers — single app for small vendors and retailers to manage inventory, receive orders across social media platforms (WhatsApp, Instagram) and set up an e-commerce storefront simultaneously. Reached 2,000 vendors and 6,000 listed products.
Why it failed: Could not convert early user traction into sustainable revenue—failed to secure follow-on funding beyond the initial MEST Africa seed. Without fresh capital or a path to meaningful monetisation, founders chose to wind down. Shutdown January 2025.
- Kippa
Country: Nigeria | Raised: $14.3M | Founded: February 2021 | Closed: 2024 | Founders: Kennedy Ekezie-Joseph, Duke Ekezie, and Jephthah Uche.
Business model: SME financial tools — started as a bookkeeping and accounting app for small Nigerian businesses (tracking sales, expenses, debt). Added KippaPay, an agency banking arm that deployed POS terminals to monetise the merchant base, and later announced a pivot to an AI-powered edtech platform.
Why it failed: KippaPay shut down in November 2023. Naira devaluation made importing POS hardware prohibitively expensive for a low-margin agency banking business. The edtech pivot was announced but never launched; the website went offline, and both co-founders relocated to the US. The company is effectively defunct as of 2024.
- BuyCoins Pro
Country: Nigeria | Raised: $1.2M | Founded: 2017 | Closed: 2024 | Founders: Timi Ajiboye, Ire Aderinokun, and Tomiwa Lasebikan
Business model: Retail cryptocurrency trading platform — Nigerian exchange for Bitcoin and other digital assets, originally launched as Bitkoin in 2017 by Timi Ajiboye and Ire Aderinokun. Offering buying, selling, and holding of crypto assets.
Why it failed: Crypto market collapse after the 2022 bear market; CBN restrictions on crypto in Nigeria created regulatory uncertainty; shrinking retail demand for crypto trading made the business unviable. Shut January 2024.
- Thepeer
Country: Nigeria | Raised: $2.3M | Founded: 2021 | Closed: 2024 | Founders: Kosisochukwu Chike Ononye and Micheal Okoh.
Business model: Wallet interoperability API — B2B infrastructure enabling businesses with digital wallets (fintechs, neobanks) to integrate cross-wallet peer-to-peer transfers via a single API. Aimed to make wallet payments as seamless as bank transfers in Nigeria.
Why it failed: Compliance bottlenecks blocked integration of key wallet providers. Digital wallet adoption in Nigeria was slower than projected. A co-founder dispute later surfaced publicly, with allegations that approximately $700K in investor funds was unaccounted for. Placed in maintenance mode April 2024.
- Cova
Country: Nigeria | Raised: $800K | Founded: 2021 | Closed: 2024 | Founders: Oluyomi Ojo and Yomi Osamiluyi
Business model: Portfolio aggregation / wealthtech — unified dashboard displaying a user’s entire financial portfolio across bank accounts, crypto wallets, landed property and stock holdings. Charged a $10 monthly subscription fee for access.
Why it failed: The $10/month subscription model failed to achieve sufficient market adoption in Nigeria. Financial instability despite having remaining investor funds. Shut down January 2024.
- Float
Country: Ghana | Raised: $17M | Founded: 2020 (originally Swipe) | Closed: 2023 | Founders: Jesse Ghansah and Barima Effah
Business model: Corporate financial operations platform — corporate cards, expense management and treasury tools for African businesses. Positioned as Africa’s answer to Brex and Airbase, targeting CFOs and finance teams at growth-stage companies.
Why it failed: CEO Jesse Ghansah orchestrated financial fraud, including forging SWIFT receipts, creating phantom treasury investments, and misappropriating client funds. Withdrawals froze in mid-2023, leaving startups unable to pay employees—leading to criminal complaints filed with Interpol. The company collapsed under the weight of the fraud.
- Zazuu
Country: Multi-country | Raised: $2M | Founded: 2018 | Closed: 2023 | Founders: Kay Akinwunmi, Korede Fanilola, Tosin Ekolie, and Tola Alade.
Business model: Remittance rate aggregator — marketplace allowing African diaspora (primarily in the UK and US) to compare exchange rates and fees across 30+ money transfer operators before sending money to Sub-Saharan Africa. Revenue from referral commissions.
Why it failed: Could not secure growth-round funding after the 2022 global capital drought. Failed to obtain key operational licences across target markets. Partners were hesitant to invest further. Announced closure in November 2023.
- Pivo
Country: Nigeria | Raised: $2.6M | Founded: 2021 | Closed: 2023 | Founders: Nkiru Amadi-Emina and Ijeoma Akwiwu.
Business model: SME supply-chain financial services — digital banking, expense management and credit facilities tailored specifically for businesses operating within supply chains (freight, logistics, manufacturing). Three products: Pivo Capital (credit), Pivo Business (accounts), Pivo Plus (insurance).
Why it failed: Co-founder conflict between CEO Nkiru Amadi-Emina and COO Ijeoma Akwiku disrupted operations. Investors imposed a restructuring plan that failed to resolve the dispute. The company ceased operations in December 2023.
- Bundle Africa
Country: Nigeria | Raised: $450K | Founded: 2019 | Closed: 2023 | Founders: Yele Bademosi.
Business model: Crypto savings and trading app — allowed users to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies and save in multiple currencies, including stablecoins. Expanded to Ghana. Founder Yele Bademosi stepped down as CEO in 2021; the company pivoted around Cashlink, its P2P transfers product.
Why it failed: Core Bundle crypto product was wound down as part of the restructuring; the company shifted its focus entirely to Cashlink, and ceased Bundle operations in 2023 amid the broader crypto market downturn.
- Vibra
Country: Nigeria | Raised: $6M | Founded: 2021 | Closed: 2023 | Founders: Vincent Li and Allen Ng
Business model: Pan-African P2P crypto platform — peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trading combining educational content and incentive programmes to drive crypto adoption across Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya.
Why it failed: Product-market fit was insufficient across African markets. Founders pivoted operations entirely out of Africa, continuing in other global markets while ceasing African services in October 2023.
- Lazerpay
Country: Nigeria | Raised: $1.1M | Founded: 2021 | Closed: 2023 | Founders: Njoku Emmanuel, Abdulfatai Suleiman, and Prosper Ubi.
Business model: Web3 crypto payment gateway — infrastructure enabling businesses and developers to accept cryptocurrency payments via APIs, payment links and embeddable checkout widgets. Targeted e-commerce and SaaS companies.
Why it failed: Lead investor pulled out of the business, triggering a funding crisis. The core team personally funded operations to keep the company alive until capital was fully exhausted. Shutdown announced in April 2023.
- Dash
Country: Ghana | Raised: $86.1M | Founded: 2019 | Closed: 2023 | Founders: Prince Boakye Boampong.
Business model: Mobile money interoperability — platform to unify and simplify financial transactions across mobile money wallets (MTN MoMo, Vodafone Cash) and traditional bank accounts across Africa. Claimed $1B in processed transactions and 5 million users across Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya.
Why it failed: Internal audits in 2021 revealed user metrics that were significantly inflated. The CEO was replaced following allegations of fraud. The Bank of Ghana suspended operations in 2022, citing missing operating licences. All staff were eventually laid off, and operations ceased in 2023.
- Saida
Country: Kenya | Raised: Undisclosed | Founded: 2015 | Closed: 2016 | Founders: Kyale Mwendwa and Kenneth Ngetha.
Business model: Mobile credit and personal finance — short-term loans and personal finance management tools for Kenyan consumers. Used mobile phone activity data (call patterns, SMS frequency, mobile money usage) as alternative credit-scoring inputs to approve microloans.
Why it failed: Could not achieve sustainable scale or lending economics. Co-founder transitioned to Catalyst Fund. Shut approximately 2016. Pre-2018 documentation is limited.
- OyaPay
Country: Nigeria | Raised: Undisclosed (family seed) | Founded: 2017 | Closed: 2019 | Founders: Samuel Ajiboyede.
Business model: Mobile POS for MSMEs — enabled offline businesses to accept payments without a traditional POS terminal using Bluetooth (BluePay) and QR code (ScanPay) technology. Also allowed merchants to take forward orders from customers with or without a smartphone.
Why it failed: Founder Abdulhamid Hassan took seed funding from a family member (an uncle) who refused to dilute his stake when external VC investment was needed at the product-market fit stage. Months-long impasse made further fundraising impossible. The founder chose to wind down rather than continue the stalemate. Shut down in February 2019.
Overall, Nigerian fintech startups had the most shutdowns, with 14 out of 20, which is expected given that 500 fintech startups currently exist. 2023 had the most shutdowns in a single year, with 8 entries. Dash (Ghana) has the largest single raise before shutdown, while Raise (Kenya) has the smallest.
Sources: Startup Graveyard Africa, Condia tracker, Disrupt Africa, Nairametrics, Launch Base Africa, TechCrunch
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ExploreLast updated: May 2, 2026
