Startup Failures in Mexico

Mexico's underbanked credit card neobank survived COVID but not rising interest rates and 18% delinquency.

SoftBank's Latin American vocational bet burned through $43M and 4 years.

The Mexican SME lending unicorn backed by Goldman Sachs reached $1.3B and then credit losses crushed it

Tech-managed short-term rentals across four Latin American cities. The tech couldn't make hospitality margins work.

Approved at last—30 months late and three competitors ahead.

AgriTech marketplace for Latin America. Mexico ops shut down.

Mexico's BNPL pioneer drowned in defaults and regulatory pressure simultaneously.

Mexico's Square-clone unicorn cut 75% of staff as its $2B valuation became a cautionary tale

SoftBank-fueled AI unicorn hopeful that expanded too far when the money spigot closed.

German-founded quick commerce startup that raised $430M and launched simultaneously in New York, Mexico City, Bogotá, and Lima — shut down all operations in 2023 when q-commerce economics collapsed globally.

Mexico's Y Combinator neobank that couldn't survive Nubank's arrival on its home turf.

The Mexican revenue-based financing startup raised $35M for e-commerce brands but the e-commerce crash wiped the portfolio

The tech-enabled Mexico-USA freight platform that nearshoring hype couldn't save

The Latin American Thrasio. Raised $760M. Then the aggregator model died.

Mexico's e-commerce logistics platform raised $35M to connect online sellers with last-mile carriers — and collapsed in 2023 when the freight broker model could not cover its cost of operations.

Andreessen Horowitz-backed B2B wholesale marketplace for Mexican small retailers — shut in 2023 after failing to displace the informal tianguis supply chain.

Last-mile delivery across 6 Latin American countries. Shut down 11 months after its last funding round.

Oxxo's digital wallet. 3M users. Shut down by its own parent.

Mexico's early neobank pioneer squeezed out as Nu and BBVA Digital scaled past it

Mexico's leading payments unicorn raised $250M at $2B but couldn't withstand Mercado Pago's zero-commission assault

Digital freight forwarding for Latin America. It rode the COVID shipping boom straight into the bust.

Mexico's fintech unicorn targeting the unbanked credit card market ran into the limits of thin margins and high defaults

A Mexican edtech killed when the government launched its own free version.

LatAm's Thrasio raised $220M from SoftBank to aggregate profitable e-commerce sellers—then restructured as the e-commerce aggregator category globally collapsed in 2022-2023.

76 years in Mexico. Amazon and Liverpool finished it.

Mexican auto-financing fintech that connected car buyers with lenders — shut down in 2022 when rising interest rates and credit losses made the personal vehicle loan portfolio unworkable.

Agritech water-saver that discovered $800 IoT sensors and rural connectivity don't mix.

Mexico's largest BNPL platform. Rising rates broke the model.

Mexico's first $8.7B unicorn that discovered used cars have very thin margins

Mexico online grocery startup raised $40M from Tiger Global to build a commission-free model—then shed hundreds of workers as the economics of Mexican online grocery refused to work.

Mexican payroll and HR software startup for SMBs, acquired by Google in June 2022 — product discontinued after acquisition as the team was absorbed into Google Workspace.

Mexico's Spanish-language audiobook startup couldn't survive when Spotify, Amazon Audible, and Apple entered LatAm

Mexico's venture-backed used-car marketplace that could not survive the 2022 funding winter — reconditioning and logistics costs never reached viable unit economics.

Mexico's leading mPOS. Raised $300M. Laid off 20% in 2022.

Mexico's AI symptom checker that COFEPRIS and a 1% conversion rate defeated.

Mexican iBuyer that raised $20M to purchase and resell homes with instant cash offers — shut down in January 2022 after 18 months when the iBuyer model proved unworkable in the Mexican real estate market.

Pan-LatAm e-commerce marketplace backed by Tengelmann and JP Morgan, acquired by Chilean retailer Falabella in 2018 — quietly wound down in 2022 when the acquirer decided to consolidate under its own brand.

Mexico's B2B payment optimization startup squeezed out between banks and larger fintech players

Mexico City crypto exchange raised $450K — CNBV 2023 regulation update required ITF-Virtual Asset authorization (18-24 months), only Bitso had full authorization, CNBV issued public warning on unauthorized crypto ITFs

Mexico's P2P lending pioneer was killed by the very regulation it helped create.

Mexican SME lender. CEO fired. Renamed. Restructured.

Chile's grocery delivery unicorn. Acquired by Uber. Absorbed into Uber Eats.

The Colombian lending fintech that couldn't survive Mexico's COVID credit crunch.

Financial services agent network in rural Mexico. CoDi arrived and changed everything.

Impact agri-fintech that couldn't hedge against Mexico's 2020 southern drought.

Mexican streaming infrastructure. AWS CloudFront arrived.

Mexico's electric scooter unicorn hopeful. It ran out of money before running out of sidewalks.

LATAM's mobility super-app was destroyed by COVID before it could reach critical mass.

Mexican live tutoring platform. Duolingo and Preply arrived.

Mexican telemedicine platform with 200K users that couldn't charge anyone anything.

Mexico's peer-to-peer lending pioneer. Shut down by the fintech law it helped draft.

Mexico's electric scooter pioneer merged, then went bankrupt together

Mexico's first e-scooter unicorn, merged with Yellow and imploded in 18 months.

Mexico's gym subscription aggregator. COVID closed every gym.

On-demand beauty startup with 5K monthly bookings killed in 90 days by a pandemic lockdown.

Mexico City's 30-minute delivery promise that cost more per order than it earned.

Mexican real estate marketplace caught between a recession and a pandemic with no bridge round.

Mexican SME lending startup. Couldn't survive the 2019 credit crunch.

Mexican P2P lending pioneer. Ley Fintech required it to become a bank.

The Mexican taxi app that couldn't out-innovate Uber's war chest.

Mexico's Shopify. Shopify arrived. Kichink didn't survive.

The Latin American edtech that raised $36M for educational games — and fabricated six million active users to get there

Mexico's first bitcoin exchange. Shut down before the Fintech Law arrived.

Mexican online brokerage raised $57M but could not hold users as Robinhood and Bitso competed

Mexican embedded insurance startup trapped between CNSF compliance costs and B2B2C distribution

Mexican tech upskilling platform that raised $5M and shut down as the edtech bubble burst.

Mexican corporate expense management startup that raised $35M and was acquired by PayRetailers before its brand was absorbed.

Mexican AI brand analytics startup made redundant when ChatGPT made brand insights free

Mexican SME fintech retreated as defaults and rates squeezed the model

Mexico's invoicing SaaS that charged $49 for what the government gave away free

Mexico City shared commuter van startup that formalized informal transport routes before COVID and remote work permanently ended its demand thesis.

Mexico's crypto exchange that Bitso turned into a rounding error

Mexican B2B fintech lending platform that raised 100 million dollars and sold to a traditional bank at an underwhelming valuation after failing to achieve independent scale.

B2B payments and procurement startup acquired by Mastercard and integrated into oblivion.

Mexico's first meal kit delivery startup quietly shut down after four years as HelloFresh entered the market and exposed the category's brutal unit economics.

Mexican B2B SaaS acqui-hired after domestic market ceiling blocked venture returns

Mexican clear dental aligner startup that tried to bring Invisalign-style treatment at affordable prices to Latin America but could not survive the direct-to-consumer orthodontics collapse.

Mexico's industrial IoT startup beaten by German and US multinationals that already knew the factories

P2P dollar account platform for LatAm retreated as regulation and stablecoin competition hit

Mexican online supermarket raised $65M and wound down after failing to crack last-mile economics.

Mexico P2P lending pioneer that survived eight years of growth before Mexico's fintech law compliance requirements made the business model unviable.

Mexican AI copilot for SMEs built a product that ChatGPT made obsolete 18 months after launch

Guadalajara bike-share trapped by infrastructure gaps and global operators

Mexico's agri-fintech competing against the government subsidized credit programs targeting its own customers

Jokr quick-commerce exited Mexico after burning capital on 15-minute delivery that could not reach break-even

Mexico's HR platform outcompeted by a better-funded local rival and a continental giant

Mexico's health AI startup blocked by procurement frameworks it couldn't access

The iBuyer that forgot Mexican real estate runs on notaries and trust