Tech company, Incentro Africa, has sued Twiga Foods for insolvency and is seeking liquidation of the firm to recover its money.
This is after the agri-business was unable to pay Ksh39 million for the installation of Google cloud services and Partner Service Funds under Incentro’s Google partners service program.
Further, the collaboration, dubbed “From Data to Dinner with Google Cloud and Twiga Foods”, was made to help Twiga Foods in making its supply chain practices as efficient and scalable as possible.
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Victor Mshindi, Twiga Foods Site and Reliability Manager commented on the Google Partner Services saying that Twiga Foods mission is to transform the African food retail market by improving every step of the supply chain with better technology.
“Food security is a significant problem in Africa and worldwide. We are striving to address the problems using digital tools.” He remarked.
Twiga Foods is a business-to-business marketplace platform that sources produce directly from farmers and delivers it to urban sellers.
In response to the court papers filed by Incentro, Twiga Foods went to court under a certificate of urgency seeking to stop the potential liquidation.
Twiga argued that the court notice was made in bad faith and has ulterior motives.
“The company disputes owing the amount $261878.75 as set out in the statutory demand, the statutory demand is made in bad faith and has ulterior motive” Twiga responded, in part through its court papers.
The fall of Twiga Foods
Twiga foods, in August of this year sacked around 267 employees. The firm slashed its workforce in a bid to reduce its wage bill, citing financial difficulties.
This is despite President William Ruto awarding the company Ksh300 million from the Hustler Fund after the Twiga Foods business model won his heart.
The monies, handed to Twiga Foods by the Trades and Cooperatives ministry and were meant for lending to Twiga’s suppliers.
In addition, the firm raised well over Ksh20 billion in funding at its start.
End of Sendy
Elsewhere, Kenyan startup Sendy that closed shop was on Wednesday, September 27 put under an administration after failing to find a buyer.
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The logistics startup attracted funding from Spark Fund, a $1m investment vehicle by Safaricom ats its start in 2015.
In 2018, Sendy raised Ksh296 million ($2 million) in a Series A drive and closed a Series B round in 2020 at about Ksh2 billion ($20 million).
Afterward, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and many companies began bleeding money which heavily affected Sendy.
In 2022, the company restructured its operations, laying off 20% of its staff. In August of this year, it announced that it was seeking acquisition.
