Today, creditors of Koko Networks gathered virtually for the first time since the Nairobi-based clean cooking company entered administration — a meeting that marks the beginning of what is likely to be a long and contested unwinding of one of East Africa’s most ambitious climate technology ventures.
The virtual meeting, scheduled under Kenya’s Insolvency Act, will allow creditors to review proposals from joint administrators and validate claims ahead of a vote on whether the firm will be restructured or liquidated. Few observers expect a rescue. The business model that once underpinned Koko Networks no longer exists.
Messrs Muniu Thoithi and George Weru of PricewaterhouseCoopers Limited were appointed as joint administrators of Koko Networks Limited and Koko Networks Global Services (Kenya) Limited on 1 February 2026 by the directors of the companies. Since then, the administrators have taken over control and management of the assets and affairs of both entities, with all operational and other matters now directed to them or their authorised representatives.
A model built on carbon, undone by a letter
Co-founded in 2014, Koko Networks spent more than a decade building what it described as a “carbon-financed utility” — a network of automated bioethanol fuel dispensers across low-income Kenyan neighbourhoods, subsidised by the sale of carbon credits to international compliance markets. The pitch was elegant: households would switch from charcoal to cleaner-burning bioethanol, generating certified emissions reductions that could be sold to airlines and heavy industry under global climate frameworks.
According to a World Bank MIGA press release, Koko’s operations generated approximately 6 million carbon credits annually, certified by Gold Standard under a UN methodology. Since launch, nearly 15 million credits had been issued.
The company raised more than $100 million in equity and debt from investors and invested roughly $300 million in Kenya — half of which went toward building its production and distribution infrastructure.
But the entire architecture rested on a single regulatory document. Under Kenya’s Climate Change (Carbon Markets) Regulations, 2024, a Letter of Authorisation (LoA) is an official approval from Kenya’s Designated National Authority that permits the sale or transfer of carbon credits internationally. Without it, Koko could not access the compliance-grade carbon markets that were priced high enough to subsidise its low retail fuel prices.
Kenyan authorities, in denying Koko the letter of approval, raised concerns about the authenticity of the carbon credits the startup was selling and the transparency of the company’s operations. The government also cited broader concerns about market concentration. A 2024 UC Berkeley study suggesting that cookstove credits are overstated added a layer of scientific scepticism to the regulatory deadlock.
By January 2026, the LoA had still not arrived. The company ran out of runway. Within days, its entire 700-person workforce was laid off and a network of 3,000 high-tech bioethanol fuel dispensers — known as KokoPoints — went dark across Nairobi and beyond, leaving approximately 1.5 million households without a reliable clean fuel source.
Lenders had been preparing for this
The collapse did not arrive without warning. Legal filings at UK Companies House show that Koko’s primary lenders had been tightening their grip on the company’s remaining assets for over a year.
In December 2024, Koko Networks Carbon Finance (UK) Limited registered two major security charges: a Borrower Security Agreement granting FirstRand Bank (RMB) a floating charge over all company assets — including intellectual property, bank accounts, and investments — and a separate Cession in Security targeting the company’s Debt Service Reserve Account in Johannesburg, listing FirstRand Bank, the AfricaGoGreen Fund, and the Mirova Gigaton Fund as secured parties. These instruments were designed to protect a $60 million facility agreement.
With the company now in administration, those lenders face a harder question: whether the underlying collateral retains any real value when the business that generated it no longer operates.
What the administrators must now resolve
The insolvency process is being overseen by administrators working alongside PricewaterhouseCoopers, who will guide creditors through potential restructuring or asset recovery plans.
The primary objective under the Insolvency Act is to allow administrators to explore ways of rescuing the company as a going concern where feasible. Where rescue is not achievable, the process is intended to focus on achieving a better outcome for creditors than would result from immediate liquidation.
Few creditors attending today’s virtual meeting are likely to harbour illusions about a going-concern rescue. The carbon credit pipeline that made Koko viable has no immediate replacement, and the regulatory dispute with the Kenyan government remains unresolved. The more realistic question before creditors is sequencing: who gets paid, from what, and in what order.
The company’s physical assets — the KokoPoint dispensers, bioethanol production infrastructure, and associated logistics — may have some residual value if sold or repurposed. The intellectual property, including proprietary fuel distribution technology and credit monitoring systems, could attract buyers in markets where carbon market regulations are more stable. But these are speculative recoveries against what was a $300 million-plus investment.
Employees, some of whom are owed salary arrears following the abrupt February shutdown, will rank behind secured creditors under Kenyan insolvency law — a position that adds a human dimension to what is otherwise a complex financial dismantling.
A warning for the wider climate tech ecosystem
The Koko Networks collapse has reverberated through the climate finance community well beyond East Africa. It is among the first high-profile failures of a “carbon-as-a-service” company — a model that has attracted significant institutional capital on the assumption that governments would honour their Paris Agreement commitments to authorise cross-border carbon credit transfers.
The failure highlights significant risks for carbon project developers relying on government authorisation and threatens CORSIA’s credit supply ahead of crucial 2027–2028 compliance deadlines. CORSIA is the international aviation sector’s carbon offsetting scheme, for which cookstove credits like Koko’s were considered eligible.
For the investors who backed Koko — institutions that include a major tech company’s climate fund (Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund) and multiple development finance-aligned vehicles — the episode raises uncomfortable questions about due diligence in markets where regulatory infrastructure is still being built. It also shows that no level of backing from influential capital—such as Bill Gates’ Microsoft—can shield a company from far-reaching government influence. The MIGA guarantee, groundbreaking as it was, did not prevent the collapse. It may not even guarantee full recovery.
For Africa’s broader clean energy startup ecosystem, the lesson may be starker still: no amount of investor backing, innovative technology, or international insurance coverage can substitute for a stable, predictable regulatory environment. Koko had all of the former and ultimately could not secure the latter.
As administrators work through the claims submitted before Wednesday’s deadline, and creditors gather today to hear what remains, the 3,000 silent KokoPoints scattered across Kenyan neighbourhoods stand as the most visible legacy of that miscalculation.
Koko Networks administrators can be contacted at ke_knk_administrators@pwc.com. The company is registered under Insolvency Notice No. E14 of 2026 in the High Court of Kenya.