Looking into the tech startup space, we see launch parties thrown for companies, but when they fail, silence.
Some don’t even give LinkedIn or blog post updates, nothing on timelines, founders disappear without a word. All we see is just a vanished website and a 404 error. No lessons, no accountability, no closure.
Over the past 18 months, Nigeria has seen a wave of shutdowns, layoffs, pivots, and slow-motion collapses. But you won’t find detailed founder threads for others to learn or open post-mortems. Instead, we’ve normalised disappearing acts.
This is about optics, investor perception, and the discomfort our ecosystem has with public failure. The cost of this silence is high, and growing.
A Winter in Full Swing: Mapping the Collapse
What we’re experiencing is a full-on tech winter, not cold snap.
Between July 2024 and July 2025, more than $100 million in investor capital was lost to shutdowns in Nigeria alone. Over 15 venture-backed startups folded.
Okra, which raised over N16.5 million, returned a fraction of its capital. Edukoya, once celebrated for raising Africa’s largest edtech pre-seed ($3.5 million), exited with barely a whisper. Thepeer, Pivo, Lazerpay, Zazuu, Bundle Africa, Quizac, Joovlin, and even OkadaBooks — all gone.
Funding has dried up at a heavy rate. Nigeria raised $176 million in H1 2025, its lowest in five years. Compare that to the $2 billion raised just between July 2021 and June 2022. Nigeria, once the continent’s funding magnet, now sits fourth behind South Africa, Egypt, and Kenya.
Where the Bodies Are Buried
There’s a digital graveyard of startups that never got to scale or sustain.
Most of them didn’t go out with press releases; there were no “thank you for believing in our mission” farewells, no medium posts revealing what went wrong. Instead, shutdowns were quiet, websites went offline, Twitter accounts stopped posting, offices emptied, and teams shrank in silence.
Founders who once shared every milestone went dark. And in that darkness, valuable lessons are being buried with them.
Why Founders Stay Silent
The silence is not accidental, but calculated.
Founders are under pressure; from investors, from peers, from personal pride. Talking openly about failure in this market feels dangerous. It could threaten future fundraising, damage professional credibility, or unsettle the team.
There’s also a cultural undertone. In Nigeria, failure isn’t viewed as iteration; it’s seen as incompetence and weakness. That stigma keeps many from speaking up. Even honest exits, like Okra and Thepeer returning unused capital, weren’t accompanied by full explanations.
Startups are dying with their stories untold.
What Failure Teaches — But We’re Not Listening
When we bury failure, we bury data. We miss out on real feedback loops.
- Edukoya and Quizac struggled not because edtech is flawed, but because their users lacked basic tools: smartphones, stable data, or disposable income.
- Pivo’s shutdown wasn’t purely macroeconomic; it also came from co-founder conflict, a recurring issue in Nigeria’s startup sector.
- 54gene collapsed not because healthtech has no future, but because it grew too fast, mishandled governance, and ignored cash discipline.
These are beyond failed businesses; they’re case studies, and we’re throwing them away.
The “Always Up” Delusion
Startups aren’t always growing, but that’s not what our ecosystem wants to hear.
Every founder is “redefining finance” or “empowering Africa’s next billion.” No one’s talking about runway. About layoffs. About unpaid salaries. Or the fact that investors have stopped taking their calls.
This obsession with hyper-growth narratives means reality usually gets buried beneath PR. Even startups at the brink are announcing partnerships and celebrating metrics.
It’s a dangerous act, one that leads to founders burning in silence, employees blindsided by sudden shutdowns, and investors misled by curated optimism.
The Cost of Capital Destruction
Let’s not downplay the fallout.
Investors, local and foreign, have been burned. TLcom Capital, Base10 Partners, Susa Ventures, Target Global, were all hit. Even angel investors like Shola Akinlade (Paystack) and Babs Ogundeyi (Kuda) lost money backing ventures that no longer exist.
Over 1,500 tech workers lost jobs in 2023. Many have left the country or the industry altogether. Others are pivoting to contract work or relocating through the “Japa” route, further hollowing out the local talent pool.
Nigeria’s tech credibility is bruised, global investors are seeing this, and pulling back.
What Needs to Change
Some green shoots are emerging. Investors now care more about profitability than pitch decks. Corporate governance, once overlooked, is becoming a priority. The B2B pivot is accelerating. Domestic capital is slowly becoming more relevant. But there’s a long way to go.
- We need a cultural shift around failure.
- We need open post-mortems.
- We need founder support groups, not just demo days.
- We need regulators to move faster, and with clarity.
The Nigeria Startup Act and the $40 million Seed Fund backed by JICA and NSIA could help, if the bureaucracy doesn’t kill their impact first.
The Power of Telling the Truth
Dead startups don’t talk. But they should.
There’s power in naming what broke, there’s growth in sharing what went wrong and there’s maturity in admitting that not every idea works, not every team gels, and not every market is ready.
If the Nigerian tech sector wants to evolve, it must stop hiding its scars. The founders who failed, pivoted, or walked away; they carry the most important insights. But until we make space for them to speak, we’ll keep building on the same shaky foundations.
And one day, we might find the silence is what finally kills the ecosystem.
