Lagos-based businessman, Lanre, finds himself grappling with a nightmare situation. Over the past month, he has been unable to access customer data, painstakingly collected over two years, due to the unexpected shutdown of Kippa, a popular Nigerian fintech app.
Lanre is just one among an estimated 500,000 business owners who relied on Kippa for essential bookkeeping tasks such as invoicing, inventory management, and financial documentation. Since January 2024, the app has become inaccessible, leaving users stranded without access to vital information like sales records, transaction history, and client details.
“It had details of all my clients, my sales record, and everything else I needed to assess my profit and loss,” Lanre lamented to TechCabal.
According to sources familiar with the matter, the Kippa app has effectively been left on autopilot, with plans to remove it entirely from both the Google Play and Apple Store. This move would permanently deprive business owners of access to data, raising concerns about potential breaches of contractual obligations under Nigeria’s data protection laws.
Launched in 2021, Kippa offered small businesses a user-friendly and accessible bookkeeping platform, revolutionizing how entrepreneurs managed their financial affairs. However, three years later, users face a stark reality where vital data is suddenly out of reach, with little to no communication from the company.
On various communication channels, including a Telegram group operated by Kippa, over 2,000 users have voiced their frustration at being unable to retrieve their data for over a month, with their inquiries met with silence from the company. “I have been totally blind about my business since Kippa shut down. I don’t know what will happen to my data if I can get it back, or if it is even secure,” one distressed user shared with TechCabal.
Initially, Kippa’s CEO, Kennedy Ekezie, attributed the problem to a “temporary AWS downtime” message to a customer, promising a swift resolution. However, the company has since shifted focus away from fintech, with plans to pivot towards edtech, a move yet to be officially confirmed or communicated to users.
This abrupt transition marks a tumultuous year for Kippa. It has seen the closure of its agency banking and business registration verticals, significant workforce reductions, and a pivot towards an AI-powered ed-tech platform for creating and sharing online courses. Despite numerous attempts to comment, the company’s CEO remained elusive, leaving thousands of businesses in uncertainty and distress over the fate of their invaluable data.
