SafeBoda, a Ugandan headquartered motorcycle ride-hailing startup has announced that it will exit the Kenyan-market effective from November 27.
The startup said in a statement that the coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on its business in the country.
The statement reads in part: “SafeBoda has made a very difficult decision to pause Rides & Send services from the 27th of November 2020.
“While Nairobi is seeing some economic recovery from Covid-19, Boda transportation has been hit hard. This has meant our business cannot sustainably operate in this environment and unfortunately, the timeline for a full recovery is not certain.
“This decision is a hard one for SafeBoda to make. We know that this will negatively impact our community of Boda Boda drivers. Our community is at the core of what we do at SafeBoda
“In Nairobi, we set out to professionalize and improve the Boda industry, building a community of over 4,000 SafeBodas that followed road safety rules, helmet wearing and gave great customer service. Over the past two years, our customers enjoyed the SafeBoda service and completed millions of rides in Nairobi.
“From now until the 27th of November we will be promoting our SafeBoda drivers and this will be a chance for customers to use their remaining wallet balances to take rides or send packages.
“SafeBoda will continue to grow in Uganda and Nigeria and will continue to be dedicated to empowering its communities to thrive.”
SafeBoda launched in Kenya a while back and has a community of users and a business value chain which extends to more than 4000 riders in Nairobi.
The motorbike-hailing startup which started in Uganda, also expanded to Nigeria in December last year after raising an undisclosed Series B round co-led by Allianz X, the digital investment unit of the Allianz Group, Go-Ventures, an arm of GO-JEK.
