Copia co-founder, high execs quietly registered new startup weeks after collapse

One month after Kenya’s Copia World collapsed in Could 2024 beneath the burden of operational debt and failure to lift contemporary funding, its high executives quietly returned to the e-commerce scene with a brand new startup.

Tim Metal, Copia’s former chief govt; Michael King, its former chief know-how officer; and co-founder and govt chairperson Tracey Turner have launched Stahili, a brand new e-commerce platform that guarantees cashback, reductions, and cell knowledge rewards for consumer engagement. Company filings seen by TechCabal present the corporate was registered in June 2024, barely a month after Copia was positioned beneath administration.

The corporate is already operational in Kenya, with a dwell web site providing offers on its merchandise. The launch comes at a delicate time for Copia’s collectors, workers, and traders, lots of whom are nonetheless battling the aftermath of considered one of Kenya’s most high-profile startup collapses.

Filings on the Enterprise Registration Service (BRS) present Stahili is wholly owned by Copia Holding Firm, a US-registered entity linked to Turner and beforehand related to the now-defunct Copia World. Whereas Copia shut down its operations in Kenya and Uganda by September 2024, the holding firm seems to have survived and is now the company guardian of the brand new platform.

Turner and Metal didn’t reply to requests for remark on the time of publication.

In January 2025, Turner began Olverra, a US-registered entity that helps African artisans promote handmade merchandise overseas. Her LinkedIn profile exhibits Turner serves as the manager chair, and Vijay Otieno, a Kenyan knowledge engineer, is the CEO.

In accordance with a brief description on Turner’s LinkedIn web page, Stahili attracts inspiration from early Groupon within the US and Coupang in South Korea, promising to empower lower-income African customers by rewarding them for collaborating in surveys and providing suggestions to manufacturers.

Based in 2012, Copia had constructed its mannequin on serving rural and peri-urban households utilizing an agent-driven last-mile supply system. For years, it was heralded as considered one of Africa’s most promising tech-for-good tales. Backed by DOB Fairness, Goodwell Investments, Enza Capital, Lightrock, and the US Worldwide Improvement Finance Company (DFC), the startup raised over $123 million (KES15.8 billion) throughout seven rounds.

Its last elevate, a $20 million injection in December 2023, got here simply months earlier than the corporate’s abrupt collapse. Regardless of the deep investor pool, Copia by no means turned a revenue in its 12-year existence. Its technique—typical of venture-backed startups—centered on development earlier than profitability, betting that speedy market seize would ultimately justify the burn.

Regardless of its lofty ambitions, Copia by no means turned a revenue. By early 2024, operational prices had spiralled, margins have been beneath stress, and the corporate did not safe a sustainable lifeline after its last $20 million funding spherical in December 2023. In Could 2024, the corporate filed for voluntary administration. It was wound down by September, with directors transferring to liquidate its remaining property to pay collectors.

It’s nonetheless unclear whether or not Stahili will search new funding and from which traders. Whether it is Copia’s religious successor, it faces the identical problem that collapsed its predecessor: delivering worth to rural customers at scale, with out burning by means of capital sooner than revenues can catch up. 

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