Alerzo's B2B-distribution bet ends: ₦4.38bn debt, frozen accounts, fleet sale

Alerzo was an Ibadan-based B2B e-commerce platform that connected fast-moving consumer goods suppliers directly to Nigeria's informal retailers — kiosks, provision stores and corner shops — delivering inventory on its own fleet of buses and motorcycles to bypass traditional wholesalers.

Owned-fleet FMCG distribution can beat Nigeria's wholesale middlemen: borrow working capital to hold the route while thin margins reach volume.

Roughly $20M in disclosed equity, including a $10.5M Series A led by Nosara Capital with earlier rounds from Baobab Network and others; in January 2025 Alerzo added a ₦5bn (about $3.3M) 18-month working-capital loan from Moniepoint Microfinance Bank, personally guaranteed by its managing director.

Adewale Opaleye founded Alerzo in 2018 in Ibadan on the observation that Nigeria's five million-plus small retail shops bought inventory through fragmented, high-mark-up distributors. Venture investors backed the thesis — a $10.5M Series A led by Nosara Capital took disclosed funding past $20M — and Alerzo expanded across Nigeria's southwest with hundreds of vehicles and employees, targeting the FMCG categories every shop sells: soap, oil, snacks and beverages.

The model's economics were hostile from the start: FMCG margins of roughly 2–5% had to cover warehouses, fuel, drivers, spoilage and shop-level credit in a country where logistics costs run high. From 2023 Alerzo began laying off staff, first by 5% and then 15% in a second round within a year, blaming rising costs and a worsening economy. On January 20, 2025, its board resolved to take a ₦5bn (about $3.3M) 18-month working-capital loan from Moniepoint Microfinance Bank; by November 2025 Moniepoint issued a demand letter and on December 4, 2025 it sued, with the balance at ₦4.38bn plus accruing interest as of early December. On January 30, 2026, Justice Daniel Osiagor of the Federal High Court in Lagos granted a Mareva injunction freezing Alerzo's accounts and assets up to that amount, including those of its managing director, personal guarantors and a Singapore-based entity.

In February 2026 videos surfaced of Alerzo-branded buses and motorcycles parked at its Ibadan facility, and nairametrics reported the company was liquidating delivery assets against the debt; founder Adewale Opaleye said the units were scrap and that over 400 vehicles still operated. By May 2026 techbuild.africa reported Alerzo was winding down its Singapore financing vehicles — dissolving the Alerzo 1A sub-fund on April 20, 2026 — leaving its Nigerian holding under a court freeze with the next months decisive between restructuring and a fuller wind-down.

The wedge was asset-heavy at the wrong time: an owned fleet and warehouses looked like a moat during the 2020–2022 boom but became a fixed-cost burden when funding dried up.

Unit economics never closed the loop: 2–5% FMCG margins could not cover Nigeria's logistics costs, so every delivery at scale moved cash, not profit.

Equity growth hid the gap until debt exposed it: the ₦5bn loan in January 2025 was survival capital, and its 18-month tenor with immediate recall terms left no room for macro shocks.

The macro turned exactly when the model needed cheap capital: inflation above 30%, naira depreciation and tightening credit markets after 2023 squeezed both Alerzo and the shops that owed it.

If the unit economics cannot service debt, equity-funded scale just buys a bigger fall: Alerzo's fleet was its moat and its trap when the loan came due.

As of 2026-09-06 Alerzo's Nigerian operating company is under a Federal High Court asset freeze over the ₦4.38bn Moniepoint debt, its Singapore SPVs are being struck off (Alerzo 1A dissolved 2026-04-20), and its Ibadan fleet is being liquidated; founder Adewale Opaleye disputes that the core business has stopped, saying 400-plus vehicles still run. No formal bankruptcy judgment has been published, but lenders and media describe the business as effectively wound down — the sector's most visible casualty of thin-margin B2B distribution.