A month after Copia Global administrators said the business would sell its assets to settle creditors, Tracey Turner, co-founder of the Kenyan-based e-commerce platform, is working on launching a new company.
Four people familiar with the matter said the new company, which has been registered in Kenya, will deliver household items in Nairobi and the surrounding suburbs. Turner is also speaking with investors and has three investors lined up to provide funding, said one analyst at a VC firm with knowledge of the talks.
Tracey’s cofounder and former Copia CEO Tim Steel will join the new team, but it is unclear in what capacity, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Steel was Copia’s chief executive from March 2017 until May 2024, when the company entered administration.
On May 24, 2024, Copia entered administration after admitting it would struggle to make payroll. Under the administrators, Makenzi Muthusi and Julius Ngonga of KPMG, it laid off 1,060 staff and hoped to raise new funding. Ultimately, fundraising attempts failed, and the company began winding down after eleven years of operation.
“Tim is a visionary. He was let down by his team. There was no hunger to get results as you would expect in most startups,” said one person with knowledge of Copia’s business.
Tracey Turner and Tim Steel did not immediately respond to separate requests for comments.
Kenya’s e-commerce sector has been hit by a series of high-profile closures this year including iProcure, a B2B farm input platform, and Rejareja, a B2B that allowed retailers to restock their shops.
“If things go as planned, operations will resume in September or October at the latest,” the same person said.
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