Videos circulating on Nigerian social media since Thursday show rows of dusty, Alerzo-branded motorcycles and buses parked inside a compound in Ibadan, Oyo State, south-western Nigeria. An off-camera voice urges viewers to come and purchase as many vehicles as they like. For a startup that once promised to rewire fast-moving consumer goods distribution across southwest Nigeria, the footage has drawn renewed attention to mounting questions about the company’s viability.
Alerzo, founded in 2018, built a B2B e-commerce platform that connected manufacturers directly to neighbourhood retailers, cutting out layers of traditional wholesalers. The model attracted more than $20m in venture capital and positioned the company as one of Nigeria’s more ambitious logistics-driven commerce plays. Today, it is facing a debt recovery suit worth ₦4.38bn (˜$2.8m at current parallel rates) brought by Moniepoint Microfinance Bank, a Mareva injunction freezing its accounts, and a public disposal of what appear to be operational assets.
Alerzo’s founder and managing director, Adewale Opaleye, told local media outlets that the vehicles being sold are scrapped units, not active fleet, and that more than 400 vehicles remain in operation. He added that the asset sales are unconnected to the Moniepoint debt matter. Launch Base Africa contacted Opaleye directly for further comment; he had not responded by the time of publication. Separately, corporate registry findings in Singapore, where a related entity — Alerzo PTE Limited — is domiciled, indicate the company has not filed for bankruptcy.
A ₦5 billion loan and a swift default
Court documents filed before the Federal High Court in Lagos reveal that Alerzo Limited applied, via a board resolution dated 20 January 2025, for a ₦5bn loan from Moniepoint Microfinance Bank to meet working capital requirements. Moniepoint approved the facility with an 18-month tenor, but included standard provisions permitting immediate recall in the event of a default.
By November 2025 — less than 12 months after the loan was drawn — Moniepoint had issued a formal demand letter requiring full repayment. The defendants, the bank alleged, failed to respond adequately. As of 3 December 2025, the outstanding balance stood at ₦4,381,662,054.47, with interest continuing to accrue.
The bank’s suit names five defendants: Alerzo Limited itself; its managing director Opaleye Adewale Adesina; three guarantors — Opaleye Bukola Modinat, Dauda Hakeem Omotayo Taiwo, and a third individual — and Alerzo PTE Limited, the Singapore-incorporated holding vehicle. The bank further alleged that it encountered difficulties serving court processes on the guarantors, who were said to be unreachable at their known addresses.
Court grants freezing order
Justice Daniel Osiagor of the Federal High Court in Lagos granted Moniepoint’s application for a Mareva injunction in February 2026. The order instructs financial institutions not to release funds or assets belonging to any of the defendants up to the value of the claim, and requires banks to disclose account balances within seven days of the order.
The court also authorised substituted service on the guarantors — by pasting notices at their last known addresses — and approved service on the Singapore entity via international courier, given the difficulty of conventional service. A substantive motion on notice remains pending and will determine whether the injunction is maintained as the case proceeds to its merits.
Mareva injunctions, sometimes called freezing orders, are granted by courts in circumstances where a creditor can demonstrate that a debtor may dissipate assets before a judgment is reached. Their issuance does not constitute a finding of liability; that determination will fall to the court at a later stage.
The economics of last-mile distribution
Alerzo’s trajectory is a useful case study in the structural pressures bearing down on Nigerian B2B commerce startups. The business model — aggregating demand from thousands of small retailers and supplying them directly from manufacturers or distributors — requires substantial capital to maintain fleet, warehousing, credit lines to retailers, and the working capital to buy inventory in advance. In a stable macroeconomic environment, high volumes can compensate for thin margins. Nigeria’s macroeconomic environment in 2023 and 2024 was anything but stable.
The naira lost more than 60% of its value against the dollar between mid-2023 and early 2024, following the removal of the central bank’s multiple exchange rate regime. The consequences for import-dependent FMCG supply chains were severe: the cost of goods rose sharply, while retailers — operating at subsistence level — had limited capacity to absorb price increases. For distribution businesses buying in naira and reliant on domestic purchasing power, the compounding of currency depreciation and inflation was particularly damaging.
By 2023, Alerzo had already initiated a round of layoffs, citing rising operating costs including fuel, vehicle maintenance, driver salaries, and warehousing. The company did not disclose the scale of the redundancies at the time.
A startup built on venture optimism
Alerzo was founded in 2018 with a proposition that resonated clearly with investors during the venture boom of 2020–2022: digitise and formalise the informal retail supply chain that underpins daily commerce for millions of Nigerians. Its $10.5m Series A round, closed in 2021, was led by Nosara Capital and attracted participation from FJ Labs, Michael Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital, and Signal Hill. Early backing came from The Baobab Network. Including a $2.5m working capital facility, total capital raised exceeded $20m — some estimates put the figure closer to $23m.
At its peak, Alerzo operated across Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, and other states in southwest Nigeria, employing hundreds of people and handling significant volumes of inventory daily. Its pitch to retailers was straightforward: better prices than traditional wholesalers, faster delivery, and consistent stock availability. For manufacturers, it offered a more efficient route to market.
The model proved difficult to sustain as macro conditions deteriorated. Venture capital flows to African startups tightened sharply from 2023 onwards, limiting the ability of high-burn businesses to raise bridge or follow-on capital. Alerzo does not appear to have closed a significant external funding round since its 2021 Series A.
A pattern familiar to the ecosystem
Alerzo’s difficulties follow a pattern that has emerged across several Nigerian startups that raised meaningful capital during the boom years and subsequently encountered structural or macroeconomic headwinds.
54gene, a genomics company once valued at over $150m and backed by Y Combinator and Adjuvant Capital, ceased operations in 2023 amid management upheaval and restructuring failures. Investors in Mecho Autotech, an automotive technology startup that raised a $2.15 million seed round in 2022 , had already written off their investments, as the company is now listed as “Out of Business” . The startup, which provided an on-demand auto repair and maintenance platform, raised a total of approximately $4.8 million across four rounds before shutting down. The list of other struggling or failed startups follows: Edukoya, Medsaf, among others.
What happens next
Whether Alerzo can continue trading through this period — or whether the legal and financial pressure accelerates a wind-down — will depend partly on its operational cash flows, partly on whether any restructuring dialogue with Moniepoint is possible, and partly on the outcome of proceedings that are still in their early stages.
Opaleye has signalled that the company is not finished. His claim that over 400 vehicles remain operational, and his rebuttal of the narrative implied by the Ibadan footage, suggests at minimum that the company is not yet conceding a collapse. But the burden of proof will fall on its continued ability to operate in the face of a significant judicial constraint.
NB: Launch Base Africa contacted Adewale Opaleye for comment prior to publication. No response was received. Corporate status information for Alerzo PTE Limited was derived from Singapore’s business registry. Court details are drawn from publicly filed documents. This article will be updated if Alerzo or any of the named parties provide a formal response.