Oja, an online grocer specialising in African and Caribbean goods, is in administration just six months after announcing angel investment from England and Chelsea footballer Raheem Sterling.
Founder Mariam Jimoh said the company faced “operational difficulties” and an “unexpected dip in Q1 revenues”. It had struggled in a “tough year for most grocery delivery companies” which “require constant funding to survive”, she added.
Jimoh, who launched Oja in 2020, initially serving a single London postcode before expanding across the capital and to Birmingham, said she had put her personal savings into the company and had been “skipping paying myself for over a year”.
The company made its last deliveries at the end of July. However, due to “technical issues”, the website could still receive orders through last month, which were “fully refunded as they came in”.
Jimoh added that shuttering the business was “complex, involving multiple facets both legal and operational, which means closing down has been a painfully long process”.
The Evening Standard yesterday reported it had obtained court documents showing that since March, Oja had faced eight different legal claims for unpaid money totalling over £50,000. The newspaper cited sources that said several employees quit after waiting months for their wages, having been told to “go to HR” to complain. The company’s HR function was run by Jimoh’s mother.
In a Twitter post, Jimoh said: “The pressure of these times sometimes made me come off harshly to many, with those closest to me often on the receiving end, for which I truly apologise”.
Oja raised £2.4m in 2021, from a slew of angel investors, including Darren Shapland, ex-CFO of Sainsbury’s; Anton Soulier, CEO of Taster and one of Deliveroo’s earliest employees; and Ricardo Weder, CEO of Jüsto, Mexico’s online grocery giant. It secured a “small funding boost” from Raheem Sterling – who also served as the platform’s first brand ambassador – in September last year. Pre-seed funding was also secured from early-stage venture capital firm LocalGlobe.
A spokeswoman for Sterling emphasised that he was a minority shareholder, which did not afford him visibility of monthly financial records and that he had not been made aware of any legal complaints.
At the time of the announcement of Sterling’s backing, Oja said it had seen order volumes growing at a rate of around 40% month on month, with an average basket size of over £60. In April, it launched a range of own-label ready meals.
Jimoh left her job as an investment banker at Rothschild in 2018 to launch Oja, to cater for the increasingly broad range of cultures in the UK, telling The Grocer last year that “everybody knows that ethnic people don’t shop in the world food aisle”.
Twitter users have pointed out that while Oja employees were struggling to receive their due wages, Jimoh was posting Instagram pictures of herself wearing luxury designer clothes and jewellery, and taking first-class flights.
In an interview with The Grocer, she said the worst business advice she had been given was to “say what investors want to hear”.
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