Earlier this month, anti-counterfeiting startup Chekkit closed a $500,000 pre-seed funding round and also disclosed its expansion to Afghanistan through their blockchain partner, Fantom Foundation who made the deal with the Ministry of Health in Afghanistan to help the country with its pharma product counterfeiting problem. Today, the company is pulling the plug on all its operations in Afghanistan.
Chekkit had a successful pilot last year in Afghanistan where it tracked and verified 80,000 products to show that their anti-counterfeiting solution works.
Tosin Adelowo, CMO of Chekkit told Nairametrics that “Our partners have exited the country and as such, it would be difficult to continue with our activities. For now, we have put things on hold and are observing how things turn out. We’re optimistic we can get things re-started in the future.”
Over the weekend, the Taliban announced the end of the age-old war in Afghanistan almost two decades after they were driven from Kabul by US troops. The group took control of the President’s Palace in Kabul. Ashraf Ghani, the president of Afghanistan fled the scene unannounced, leaving what remained of his administration at the mercy of the Taliban.
An unbelievable video surfaced, showing hundreds of Afghans, in a desperate bid to flee the country running alongside a US military jet as it prepared to depart Kabul airport. One video showed several people climbing onto the plane as it progressed down the airport’s runway, some of whom appeared to be hanging off its moving front wheel.
Since the takeover, international businesses and organizations are already closing shops and evacuating their people. Chekkit is one of the companies that has exited due to the unrest in the country. This might lead to a surge in counterfeit products in the country since the company had plans to “track and verify 200 million products in the Middle-Eastern country.”
