CanGo Stopping Operations

CanGo customers and supporters,

Peter and I have the unfortunate news to share with you that today is the last day of SafeMotos / CanGo operations.

December was an incredible month for us. We reached trip volume of more than 4,000 trips per day, grew by 260% month on month and were achieving the sub metrics on user retention, resilience to increased pricing, low customer acquisition costs and high brand awareness that reaffirmed our deep belief that Kinshasa and Central Africa are ideal markets for a superapp. 

Unfortunately, we have not been able to find the funds to leverage this success into increased runway for the company. While investor enthusiasm and interest has been high, it has not translated to checks being written.

We have a choice to change strategy: fire everyone and bootstrap with a brand new pivot, or close. We tried the bootstrap strategy in Rwanda: while we achieved positive unit economics, we weren’t able to tell a story of traction to leverage more funds. 

Kinshasa is among the most hostile environments on earth, it needs proper capital to make a company successful here. This is not a shoestring environment.  

We’ve decided to make the challenging decision to stop while there is still enough money in the bank to pay our employees what we owe them. 

We apologize to you all for failing in our mission in making a valuable and disruptive service that reorients the quality of life and access to essential services for the people of Central Africa. We are proud to be the most successful startup to have ever emerged in the region of Central Africa and we hope our textbook execution and incredible market resonance inspires others to see the region as an opportunity.

We thank you all for being on this journey with us, it was the experience of a lifetime. Peter and I feel an incredible amount of pride for what we have accomplished in Kinshasa and Kigali, we hope that you all feel the same for the journey that we have been on together.

Barrett and Peter