Startup Failures in Mexico

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

76 years in Mexico. Amazon and Liverpool finished it.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

AgriTech marketplace for Latin America. Mexico ops shut down.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Mexican SME lender. CEO fired. Renamed. Restructured.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Mexican streaming infrastructure. AWS CloudFront arrived.

Mexico deep tech: CONACYT's co-ownership IP requirement blocked US/EU VC investment, no university tech transfer capacity, and ChatGPT increased pressure to differentiate from software AI

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

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

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.

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

Mexican live tutoring platform. Duolingo and Preply arrived.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Mexico fashion tech competing against Shein (35M Mexican users), TikTok Shop, AliExpress, and Liverpool Fashion's digital pivot

Mexico restaurant tech: Toast entered from US, Oracle Micros covered chains, Clip (Mexican unicorn) added restaurant POS, and Square launched restaurant module

Mexico legaltech second attempt: ChatGPT commoditized legal drafting, Harvey AI launched Spanish, and Clio (150K global law firm clients) entered Mexico

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

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

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

Mexico's free tournament platform that forgot to build a business

Mexico logistics second wave competing against Mercado Libre Envíos (60%+ e-commerce), 99minutos, and Amazon Logistics in the same Mexico City market

Mexican SME fintech retreated as defaults and rates squeezed the model

Mexico edtech third wave competing against Tecnológico de Monterrey's proprietary platform, UNAM Digital, and Coursera in the same market

Mexico's plant-based food startup that discovered carne asada is a cultural institution, not just a meal

Monterrey insurtech that BBVA Mexico and Banorte had already covered through GNP and MetLife bancassurance

Mexican SME e-commerce aggregator wiped out by Amazon Mexico's SME seller onboarding

Mexico's carbon credit marketplace for a voluntary market that voluntarily didn't buy

Guadalajara bike-share trapped by infrastructure gaps and global operators

Mexico's satellite startup whose licensing workaround created a US investor problem

Mexico water tech blocked by CONAGUA exclusive concessions, Veolia/Suez French water management contracts in PPPs, and SIMAS municipal exclusivity

Mexico's digital health insurance startup that brokers refused to let exist

Mexico's precision agritech that SAGARPA gave away for free through its Extensionismo program

Mexico construction tech competing against CEMEX Go (40K suppliers), Infonavit procurement, and Procore (US) entering the same market

Mexican iBuyer that entered the market right before rising rates made the model unworkable

Mexico's OTA that COVID finished off after Expedia and Booking had already won

Mexico's agricultural drone service company that DJI made uncompetitive overnight

Mexico's cybersecurity startup trapped between SMEs that wouldn't pay and enterprises that already had vendors

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

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.

Mexican online pharmacy disrupted by Farmacias del Ahorro's own app and COFEPRIS licensing battles

Mexican solar energy developer destroyed by AMLO energy reform canceling renewable contracts

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

Mexico's industrial robotics startup beaten by the incumbents that built the factories it was trying to modernize

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

Mexico's legaltech shut down by bar associations protecting their members from software

Mexico legaltech for the 5 top law firms that already had iManage or Clio contracts

Mexico supply chain tech built for nearshoring boom — SAP/Oracle/BlueYonder all entered Mexico simultaneously to capture the same manufacturing clients

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

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

Mexico waste tech blocked by SEDEMA exclusive concessions, Veolia/Suez Mexico City contracts, and 24-month SEMARNAT licensing

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

Mexico's adtech that Google's Spanish targeting update made unnecessary

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 mobile games studio killed by a Google algorithm update

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 agricultural fintech blocked by FIRA's $10B government credit monopoly, 18-month CNBV SOFOM license, and Driscoll's contract farmer credit covered by parent

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

Mexico edtech fourth wave: after three sequential failures, ChatGPT/AI tutors commoditized personalized learning in November 2022 while Duolingo, Khan Academy, and Platzi each served different segments

Digital credit scoring for Mexico's thin-file majority — cost of defaults consumed the margins

Mexico HR software entering a market with Nominaplus (80K clients), SAP, Workday, and 3 VC-backed Mexican HR startups all targeting the same SME segment

Mexico's supply chain blockchain that SAP and EDI made irrelevant

Mexico trucking marketplace that discovered negative unit economics too late

Mexico's mental health app blocked by IMSS insurance that only covered in-person therapy

Mexico healthtech building for a market where IMSS, ISSSTE, CIMA, and Médica Sur had already digitized before it launched

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

Mexico's third agritech in Sinaloa for berry growers that Driscoll's, Del Monte, and Dole had already covered with parent company AI

Mexico retailtech competing against OXXO's proprietary PoS, Clip (the local unicorn), and Coppel's 10M-user wallet

Mexico gaming competing against Activision COD Mobile (60M users), Free Fire, and Xbox Game Pass at MXN 129/month

Mexico wealthtech 5th entrant competing against GBM+ (1.2M users), Flink (600K), and Kuspit after a 24-month CNBV license process

Mexico Industrial IoT: Siemens Digital, Rockwell Automation, PTC ThingWorx, and Cisco all opened Mexico sales offices during the nearshoring boom before IIoTMX could establish enterprise relationships

Mexico vertical farming launched when AeroFarms and AppHarvest were shutting down in the USA with the same unit economics problem

Mexico corporate learning competing against Platzi Business (500+ company clients), LinkedIn Learning (Microsoft), and STPS government training programs

Mexico water tech second attempt in Guadalajara — SIAPA monopoly, Suez advisory contract, Veolia treatment concession confirm the same national structural barriers in a different city

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

Mexico biotech with 36-month COFEPRIS approval while IMSS required 5-year track record and BIRMEX had exclusive mandate for vaccine production

Mexico's last-mile startup that scaled for a world that stopped ordering

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

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

Mexico's second plant-based food startup outcompeted by Impossible and Beyond at every supermarket shelf

Mexico rooftop solar in Sonora's sun belt — Net Metering 3.0 eliminated surplus generation compensation and CFE permit backlog reached 18 months

Mexico's neobank that Bitso and Nubank absorbed before it could reach scale

Mexican professional skills platform outspent by Coursera and Platzi entering the market

Mexico's regtech startup that the Big Four auditors bundled out of existence