PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has taken control of Koko Networks, days after the clean-cooking startup effectively stopped operating across Kenya.
The appointment of PwC as administrator is the first formal step in dealing with a collapse that had already played out.
Muniu Thoithi and George Weru of PwC were appointed joint administrators on February 1 under the Insolvency Act 2015.
From that point, control of the company’s assets and decisions moved away from management.
“The primary objective of administration proceedings is to allow Administrators to explore ways of rescuing the company as a going concern where feasible or achieving a better outcome for the creditors of the company than would be in the case of a liquidation,” the notice said.
By the time PwC arrived, the damage was already visible. On January 31, more than 700 employees were laid off as Koko’s fuel distribution slowed and, in many areas, stopped.
Customers in low-income neighbourhoods who depended on the company’s ethanol refills were left without supply.
At its peak, Koko served between 1.3 and 1.5 million households through about 3,000 automated fuel shops in Kenya and Rwanda, though the Rwanda operation had been paused earlier.
What finally broke the business was regulatory. Koko had spent months seeking a Letter of Authorisation that would allow it to sell carbon credits internationally.
Those talks were described by people close to the company as “going well” until last week, when a senior official rejected the application and “trashed every progress” made.
That decision shut the door on carbon revenues that investors had tied to more than $300 million in equity, debt and guarantees.
Without that income, the numbers no longer worked. Koko sold two-burner smart stoves at KES 1,950 ($16), far below cost, and kept fuel prices as low as KES 30 ($0.23). Carbon credits were meant to carry the loss. They never came.
Pressure had been building long before the final decision. In April 2024, Kenya’s Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority suspended bio-ethanol imports.
Koko was forced to rely on a more expensive local supply, which disrupted logistics and tightened margins. By late 2025, fuel shortages had become frequent, even as the company tried to keep its network running.
Big names backed the expansion. Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, Verod-Kepple, Mirova, Rand Merchant Bank and the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, which provided a $179.6 million guarantee, all supported the company at different stages.
PwC now faces the options of assessing whether any part of the Koko Networks business can be rescued, or winding it down in a way that returns more to creditors than liquidation would.
Creditors have been given 14 days to submit claims.
