All autopsies

// STARTUP COMPARISON

Rappi (2022 crisis) vs Convoy

Rappi (2022 crisis) failed in 2022 due to Unit Economics. Convoy failed in 2023 due to Bad Timing. Different causes, different sectors, different eras — but the same simulation outcome.

METRIC🔥 Rappi (2022 crisis)🔥 Convoy
SectorMarketplaceMarketplace
CountryColombiaUSA
Founded20152015
Died20222023
Raised$2B$1B
Peak$5.25B valuation$3.8B valuation
Primary CauseUnit EconomicsBad Timing

// WHY EACH FAILED

🔥 Rappi (2022 crisis)
Unit Economics
Rappi, Colombia's first unicorn and Latin America's most funded startup, raised $2B and reached a $5.25B valuation. The 2022 global tech downturn exposed chronic unit economics problems — delivery subsidies, low basket sizes, and high customer acquisition costs made the path to profitability unclear. Rappi laid off approximately 6% of its workforce in 2022 and cut unprofitable verticals.
// LESSON
Super-app strategies require the core vertical to be profitable before adding adjacencies. Each new vertical is a bet funded by the core. If the core bleeds, every adjacency accelerates the bleeding.
🔥 Convoy
Bad Timing
Convoy built a digital freight brokerage connecting shippers with truckers. After raising $1B and reaching a $3.8B valuation, the freight market collapsed in 2022-2023 as post-COVID supply chain normalization and economic slowdown reduced shipping demand sharply. Spot freight rates fell 50%+. Convoy's take-rate model required volume that the market could not provide. The company shut down in October 2023.
// LESSON
Digital freight marketplaces have revenue directly tied to freight market cycles. The technology doesn't create volume — it competes for existing volume. In a freight recession, the best technology in the world generates half the revenue at half the volume.

// IN THE SIMULATION

Rappi triggers SUPER_APP_UNIT_ECONOMICS_CRISIS — the simulation models multi-vertical platforms as carrying compounding subsidy costs. Each added vertical adds CAC without proportionally increasing LTV until the core vertical achieves profitability first.

Convoy triggers FREIGHT_CYCLE_COLLAPSE — the simulation models digital freight brokers as having revenue tightly correlated with spot freight market volumes. In a freight recession, take-rate models generate insufficient revenue to sustain operations regardless of technology quality.

// EXPLORE FURTHER