M-KOPA Sets the Record Straight: Responding to a Campaign of Misinformation about our Employee Share Programme

For months, M-KOPA has pursued the principled path - choosing to address private and legal disputes through proper channels while protecting the privacy and dignity of all parties involved. We hoped that facts, fairness, and good faith would prevail.  

Unfortunately, that approach has been met with escalation, not resolution.  

Mr. Chad Larson, co-founder and ex-CFO, has continued a targeted social media campaign and pursued legal proceedings in the Kenyan Courts.  His efforts in court have been unsuccessful to date. This includes a September 2025 hearing where Mr. Larson was advised to withdraw his application due to inconsistencies in his evidence after our lawyers argued that he may have perjured himself and abused the court process. Mr. Larson is also repeating his baseless allegations in the media, including by sending a letter to the CMA and leaking a copy publicly. The Company strongly denies the baseless claims made by Mr. Larson in Court and in the media more broadly.  

We can no longer stand by while deliberate falsehoods are presented as facts.  

The truth tells a different story:  

• Mr. Larson resigned from M-KOPA in 2018 when the company was loss-making and publicly stated he had "given up hope" in the company and its financial viability.  He has played no active role since, though he retained a minority founder shareholding of circa 1%.

• Since leaving, he worked against M-KOPA as a board director and paid adviser for a direct M-KOPA competitor.  
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• His campaign against the Company was launched in 2023, which timed with M-KOPA's positive publicity and fundraising milestones.  
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• Escalations have consistently aligned with critical business periods - suggesting coordination, not grievance.  
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• His claims that M-KOPA should be valued at USD 4-10 billion are demonstrably false; USD 10 billion would equal the combined value of Kenya's two largest publicly traded companies.  
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• Mr. Larson has denied any link to the parallel set of proceedings brought by former M-KOPA employee Liz Njoki, but the underlying claims in each of the matters relate to the same fundamental shareholder allegations. Ms. Njoki is represented by the same lawyer who represents Mr Larson’s company.  In its directions issued in September 2025, the Court required Mr. Larson to withdraw his application to injunct a recent fundraising round because of clear inaccuracies in his sworn evidence. The Court also asked him to demonstrate why his suit and Ms. Njoki’s suit are not related and to report back on 19 November 2025. Mr. Larson has since withdrawn his suit the in High Court.  
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• Mr. Larson claims he is fighting for African employees of M-KOPA. However, in the claims he has brought, he is actually seeking to block all African employees from their right to sell shares on the same terms being offered to non-Kenyan and institutional sellers.  
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The central contradiction: Mr. Larson has positioned himself as a champion of African employee rights, while actively seeking to prevent those same employees from selling their shares. His legal proceedings explicitly attempted to block individuals of African descent from choosing to participate in share sales, without their consent. When former and current employees tried to join the case to oppose him, they were opposed from doing so by the lawyer representing Ms. Njoki.    

We have a duty to our 2,000+ employees, 3 million active customers, and 40,000 sales agents who have built this business through dedication and integrity.  The Company does not wish to stand by and watch their work being undermined by someone who has not had a role in the Company for nearly 8 years.  

The CMA Letter: Mr Larson’s letter to the CMA, which he has posted on social media, contains serious allegations, all of which are categorically denied. The transaction referred to in the letter relates to private share sales in a UK company between willing third-party buyers and sellers that do not fall under Kenyan CMA regulation. A full rebuttal to his false claims is available on our website.  

The letter was sent after multiple attempts by Mr. Larson to injunct Kenyan shareholders from participating in the Series F financing round failed in the Kenyan Courts. Since then, Mr. Larson has also withdrawn the case he filed against M-KOPA Holdings. The timing suggests an ongoing attempt to use all measures to stop the company raising funds to continue with its expansion and growth.

The facts are these: Thus far, Kenyan courts have rejected arguments put forth by Mr. Larson and Ms. Njoki that their claims primarily centre around fundamental questions of discrimination or a violation of constitutional rights. Our employee share programmes - issued to hundreds of employees, the majority of whom are African - are designed to attract and retain top talent and are governed by clear HR policies and third-party compensation expertise.

M-KOPA has grown more than 10x since 2018 when Mr. Larson left. We have achieved profitability, and we have been recognised four years running on the Financial Times’ Africa's Fastest Growing Companies list.  

We chose the principled path.  

We are now prepared to exercise our full legal rights to protect our business, our people, and the truth.  

For media enquiries: press@m-kopa.com  

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