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Mobius Motors Announces Plan To Close Shop
Kenyan based automaker, Mobius Motors, backed by Playfair Capital has entered a voluntary liquidation after nearly a year of rescue efforts failed. The company has reportedly struggled to settle suppliers and pay salaries as debts from its operations increased.
“At a meeting of the shareholders held on 5 August 2024, it was resolved to place the company under liquidation as per Section 393(1)(b) of the Insolvency Act and appoint KVSK Sastry as the liquidator to wind up the company,” Nicolas Guibert, Mobius director, announced in a notice.
Kenya’s Insolvency Act 2015 allows companies to wind up if the board resolves “by special resolution that it be liquidated voluntarily.”
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Mobius, which raised $56 million across five funding rounds, manufactured low-priced SUVs targeting SMEs in infrastructure, agribusiness, and supplies operating in remote areas, requiring vehicles that could withstand rough terrains.
Founded in 2009 by Joel Jackson, a British national, while working in Kenya, Mobius pioneered a stripped-down SUV model “built for African roads” in 2014. The first model cost $10,000, significantly lower than the market prices of standard SUVs in Kenya.
The startup built 50 units of its first model. It released Mobius II and Mobius III in 2018 and 2021 respectively, as successors of the first model, but failed to capture the Kenyan car market flooded with second-hand imports from the UK, Japan, and other Asian countries.
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The company’s production was tied to pre-orders with a refundable deposit of $384, indicating low market uptake of its models.
Mobius began mass production in 2015 after receiving backing from Playfair Capital, a UK-based VC. It also received funding from Chandaria Industries, a Kenyan-based manufacturer, DFC, a US government development corporation, and PanAfrican Investment, a private investment firm.
The current administration, the UDA government now joined by equally incompetent ODM politicians, should have established a policy mandating that all new vehicle purchases for both the county and national government be sourced from Mobius, a local manufacturer. This would have stimulated job creation and supported local industry, addressing a critical need that the government has so far failed to meet, creating employment! The inability to implement such policies and the weaponising of the Kenya Revenue Authority highlights significant deficiencies in leadership, underscoring the necessity for a change of the current administration.
This is what is making the Gen-Z’s in Kenya go to the streets weekly to protest, the failure of the Kenyan administration and Ruto’s government is overwhelming!