Fast, an online checkout startup that had raised $124.9 million in funding, has crashed and burned after reporting minimal revenues in its second year of operation.
Launched in September 2020, Fast’s flagship product was designed to overcome the problem of shopping card abandonment by enabling consumers to complete purchases with a single click on any browser, platform or device.
Billing itself as a trailblazer for one-click checkout, Fast last raised a $102 million Series B led by Stripe in January 2020 at a valuation of $580 million.
At the time, Fast said that it would double down on product expansion, move into markets outside of the US and double its employee count to 200 by the end of the year.
The expansionist strategy led to a high cash burn rate which, combined with a six-figure turnover and limited fundraising options, forced the company to liquidiate its operations.
Fast reported its demise on Twitter
Fast CEO Domm Holland has had a chequered career as a startup founder. His previous startup Tow.com.au, which pitched itself as ‘the Uber of towing’, went belly-up in what at least one person told the news outlet NPR was a “disaster”. NPR’s article reported that Tow.com was dead in the water after “a multimillion-dollar billing dispute with the Australian state government over towing and impounding fees led to the startup’s liquidation in 2018.”
