Evaluating only Habi’s profile at its peak — without knowing the outcome — the model ranked Unit economics as the #1 likely cause. That’s exactly how it died.
Key Events Timeline
FOUNDING
Habi founded
DOWN ROUND
Down round or bridge financing
SHUTDOWN
Down Round: Habi ceases operations
Full Analysis
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Documented cause
Habi raised $200M+ at an $800M valuation to build a real estate transaction platform in Colombia and Mexico, offering instant home purchase (iBuying) and digital brokerage. Colombia's Banco de la República raised rates aggressively — from 1.75% to 13.25% in 18 months — making housing transactions unaffordable and making Habi's property inventory expensive to hold. The company conducted significant layoffs in 2023 and was forced into a down round that wiped out most of its unicorn-era value.
Alternative account: Habi was a Colombian proptech startup that built an iBuyer platform for residential real estate, offering instant cash purchases of homes followed by light renovation and resale. Founded in 2019 by Brynne McNulty Rowan and Sebastian Noguera, the company expanded rapidly across Bogotá and Mexico City, attracting $200 million in funding from SoftBank, Tiger Global, and Inspired Capital at a peak valuation exceeding $600 million. The iBuyer model requires cheap capital, liquid markets, and stable prices — all three conditions deteriorated simultaneously in 2022. Global interest rate hikes increased Habi's cost of capital for holding inventory, the Colombian and Mexican real estate markets slowed sharply, and the capital market for growth-stage LatAm startups shut down. Habi executed sweeping layoffs in 2022 and 2023, reportedly cutting over 50 percent of its workforce. The company survived in a deeply reduced form but at a fraction of its peak scale and valuation.
Lesson
“Before building an iBuying business in any market, model what happens when rates hit 2× current levels. In Colombia, that took 18 months.
Alternative account: iBuyer models require stable interest rates and liquid markets — importing the model to emerging markets adds currency, political, and liquidity risk that multiplies downside severity.”