NopeaRide, Kenya’s first completely electric taxi service, is leaving the market after its parent company, EkoRent Oy, was unable to obtain further finance to keep it solvent.

According to NopeaRide, EkoRent Africa, the Finnish company’s local subsidiary in Kenya, has filed for insolvency, effectively ending the operations of the all-electric vehicle taxi player, which sought to drive a shift to environmentally friendly transportation options while increasing competition for early market entrants Uber and Bolt.

“We have taken our fleet of electric vehicles off the road and have notified our staff and corporate clients. We are now working with relevant authorities to ensure that our operations are wound up in accordance with local legislation,” said NopeaRide in a statement. “We would like to extend our deepest regret to our dedicated team of staff and drivers. We would also like to thank our loyal NopeaRide customers, corporate clients and other partners who have supported NopeaRide’s vision for electric mobility in Africa.” 

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Juha Suojanen launched EkoRent Oy in 2014 to create solutions based on electric vehicles and solar energy, which eventually led to the launch of NopeaRide in Kenya in 2018.

NopeaRide supplied the charging network, as well as the driver and rider apps, as well as the electric vehicles. The drivers, on the other hand, were obliged to organise their own financial systems.

After raising secret money in 2019, the firm grew from three vehicles to 70 by the time of closure, and had constructed a charging network around Nairobi.

Last year, NopeaRide obtained €200,000 in investment from EEP Africa, a financing institution for early-stage sustainable energy in Southern and East Africa, to create more solar charging hubs in Nairobi and expand its service radius in preparation for future expansion.

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The startup said it was on the mend this year after its business was harmed by the COVID outbreak, which resulted in fewer rides as people worked from home.

“In the first half of 2022 our traffic numbers grew to about the same level as before Covid-19. We also started to put more effort in the corporate segment as their employees were returning to office and managed to sign contracts with a few big international companies, some of them potentially reserving the majority of available Nopea capacity,” it said. “However, EkoRent OY went into insolvency in Finland and was unable to secure additional financing to grow the business in Nairobi to the next level.”

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert. 
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh