NopeaRide, an electric taxi company has put its 66 cars on auction months after exiting the Kenyan market.
The company’s liquidator has informed interested buyers that they have up to March 8 20223 to place bids for the available units.
The company late last year announced that it was shutting down operations in Kenya after one of its majority shareholders declared insolvency.
The company also attributed its decision to shut down its operations in the country to the Covid-19 pandemic which it said had affected its business.
“Following the announcement that our majority shareholder, EkoRent Oy, has declared insolvency in Finland, we are sad to announce that InfraCo Africa Limited the minority shareholder has now filed for the liquidation of EkoRent Africa Limited in the High Court of Kenya,” the statement said.
NopeaRide was launched in Kenya in August 2018, received funding for additional electric vehicles in 2019 which was interrupted by Covid 19.
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“Many of the additional vehicles arrived in Nairobi at just about the same time when the strict Covid-19 curfew rules were put in place in March 2020.
“Those rules lead to daily kilometers driven by Nopea vehicles dropping approximately 60 percent overnight. The timing of these additional Nopea vehicles arriving in Kenya could not have been much worse,” the company said.
NopeaRide further blamed the failure to raise additional funding to support and expand its operations as one of the reasons they exited the Kenyan market.
“When closing the initial equity round for NopeaRide, we had estimated the number of vehicles needed to break even in Kenya. We were still short of that number by around 20 vehicles and signed an agreement with a financing consultant in February 2022 to help us find the needed financing.” the statement read.