Copia Global pauses African expansion; shuts down Uganda operations to focus solely on Kenya

Copia Global announced that it is shutting down its Ugandan operations and suspending its expansion in Africa.

The announcement was made by CEO Tim Steel in a blog post on Wednesday. According to him, this decision was a response to the prevailing economic downturn and constrained capital markets.

The Kenyan B2C e-commerce company recently opened the Ugandan office after raising $50 million in a Series C equity round in 2022. It had planned to use the capital to grow its proven model across East Africa and to expand into other African countries, extending its service to millions of Africa’s underserved consumers.

Tim Steel remarked that the Uganda business successfully demonstrated the demand for and replicability of the Copia model in bringing e-commerce to the Africa mass market and the company is hugely grateful to the talented team in Uganda who made this happen in such a short time frame.

The CEO however stated that for now, the company will focus on solely on driving the business in Kenya so as to accelerate its drive to profitability. He also added that this move is consistent with many of the best companies in Africa and across the world, which are responding to the market environment and prioritizing profit.

Launched in 2013, Copia leverages cutting-edge technology that links middle and low-income consumers to a variety of quality products that are delivered at their convenience. It currently has a network of over 50,000 digital-enabled Agents across Kenya, two million customers and over 13 million orders to date.