The Next Wave: The unfinished business of a startup’s collapse

Koko Networks raised more than $100 million from international investors to sell subsidised clean cooking stoves, relying on carbon credit sales to help cover their costs. Copia Global raised $123 million to bring e-commerce to smaller towns. Both businesses built sizeable operations around costly problems in African markets. When they collapsed, the question became how much money was left to repay those who had financed their growth.

In February 2026, the administrators of Copia estimated the realisable value of its…