All autopsies

// STARTUP COMPARISON

Badi vs Fast

Badi failed in 2022 due to Bad Timing. Fast failed in 2022 due to Unit Economics. Different causes, different sectors, different eras — but the same simulation outcome.

METRIC🔥 Badi🔥 Fast
SectorProptechFintech
CountrySpainUSA
Founded20152019
Died20222022
Raised$30M$580M
Peak$30M raised$580M raised
Primary CauseBad TimingUnit Economics

// WHY EACH FAILED

🔥 Badi
Bad Timing
Badi built a Tinder-style matching app for room rentals in urban markets (Barcelona, Madrid, London, NYC). The model depended entirely on urban density — young professionals needing affordable shared housing near work. COVID emptied city centers as remote work spread. Demand for urban room rentals collapsed in 2020-2021. By the time urban density recovered, cheaper competitors (Idealista, Fotocasa, SpareRoom) had consolidated the market. Badi shut down its platform in 2022.
// LESSON
Marketplaces that depend on urban density have zero pandemic resilience. Badi needed people in cities and needed them to be price-constrained. Remote work broke both assumptions simultaneously.
🔥 Fast
Unit Economics
Fast raised $580M for a one-click checkout product. Internal reports cited by TechCrunch revealed the company had approximately $600K in monthly revenue against $10M+ in monthly burn — a 17x revenue-to-burn mismatch. Unable to raise a Series C in the 2022 market, Fast shut down in April 2022. Stripe had already launched Stripe Link (a competing product) and Shopify Payments dominated the checkout space.
// LESSON
$580M raised is not a business. $600K monthly revenue against $10M monthly burn is a company racing toward zero. No amount of capital fixes a 17x revenue-to-burn ratio in a checkout category dominated by Stripe and Shopify.

// EXPLORE FURTHER