Nigerian logistics company, Hytch, has officially announced that it has shut down all operations from Thursday, February 2, 2023.
The company made this news public through an announcement across all its social media pages.
“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!”the company said in the announcement.
According to TechCabal, CEO and co-founder of Hytch, Laolu Onifade stated during an exclusive call with the news platform that the decision was majorly as a result of “harsh macro-economic conditions.” Claiming that the company was unable to sustain the business with just funds they make from operations.
Launched in May 2022, Hytch started out as a company which transported humans with the CEO stating that the goal was to eliminate the need for Lagosians to board public danfo buses. The company later stopped its carpooling operations to strictly convey goods for businesses locally and internationally.
Despite the switch, the startup struggled to gain grounds financially which comes as no surprise as logistics is one business that needs lots of monetary investments as well as technological enhancement. This is why big ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Bolt needed to raise huge sums to keep the company going, even without seeing so much profit.
Hytch shutting down means the company did not last a year in the highly-saturated and competitive Lagos market and have suffered the same fate as its predecessor, GoMyWay which shut down in October 2018 for similar reasons, four years after its launch. SafeBoda is another transportation company that recently closed operations with the startup shutting down operations in Nigeria after two years.
There were lots of question marks about the possibility of Hytch thriving where GoMyWay failed and the company went off to a bright start as constant social media promotions helped it gain over 600 users in its first week. The company made its services relatively cheap to keep these customers happy, but this backfired as it started operating at a loss even before they realised.
Despite the tragic development, Onifade has seemingly moved on and is looking to kick start his next venture soon, one which he exclusively revealed to TechCabal won’t be related to ride-hailing.
