Hytch Africa, a Nigerian logistics platform, has shut down all operations.
This was announced in a statement released on the social media pages of the startup on Thursday.
“It’s been a tough one, but we are shutting down operations finally, we would no longer be providing our services to businesses or individuals. We appreciate all our customers and well-wishers! We are making a tough decision close operations finally, and will no longer continue to provide services to our customers,” the statement from the company’s page reads.
Hytch was founded in 2021 by Laolu Onifade, Femi Omoniyi (CTO), Olawale Adeyeye (Chief Imagineer), and Kemdirim Akujobi (Product and Design Lead) to help businesses scale by delivering products to their customers and also providing access to loans.
In May 2022, Hytch began as a ride-hailing platform. It aimed to help individuals share rides, travel faster, and do so for less money. However, due to a lack of finances, it halted its carpooling service last August, opting instead to become a B2B logistics network that helps small businesses fulfill their orders nationwide and globally.
Hytch wanted to empower businesses to serve clients, sell on the internet, and get loans to expand and deliver efficiently after shifting to a B2B platform. There were ambitions to collaborate with African enterprises to assist them in serving and delivering to their clients internationally.
Hytch was active in Lagos and Abuja, and the CEO, Laolu Onifade, explained the platform’s trustworthiness in a LinkedIn article in late 2022.
“We started with moving people from one place to another, and now we help businesses move products from one place to another. We are just getting started, really, We have found a product market fit in powering the delivery infrastructure that more and more businesses can rely on,”
“The financial infrastructure for businesses to receive payments has been built and handled by startups like Paystack, Fluidcoins, Lazerpay, Fincra, and Flutterwave, plus startups like Bumpa are building an infrastructure for these businesses to sell online and reach global customers.”
This is where Hytch comes to play, powering order fulfillment for merchants and delivering locally and internationally. We are building on reliability, which is why businesses in healthcare, e-commerce, fintech, and others already use our reliable system.” his LinkedIn post reads.
However, it appears that the Nigerian startup’s venture was not viable, as evidenced by the decision to discontinue all services. Apart from the notice of shutdown, there has been no further information on the company’s social media channels.
There’s a possibility that the shutdown of Hytch is connected to the unfavourable macroeconomic conditions in the world, and this situation has seen big tech companies and small ones alike lay off some of their staff.