The COVID-19 pandemic created a huge need for essential products delivered to people’s doorsteps; however, the perishable goods segment has proven to be a challenging market. A prime example is Jüsto , the Mexican online supermarket startup , which ceased operations on December 15, 2025 , after facing a combination of financial, operational, and strategic factors, according to an official statement released by the company.
“We have made the difficult decision to cease operations at Jüsto,” the company said, thanking its customers for trusting in “a different way of grocery shopping,” based on fresh products, support for Mexican producers, and a digital model that sought to transform the shopping experience.
The platform’s business model was based on eliminating physical stores and intermediaries to sell and deliver grocery products directly to the consumer’s home through its online platform .
The company used its own technology (including micro-fulfillment and smart inventory management) to optimize operations, reduce fixed costs and offer fresh, competitive products with less waste .
Since its founding in 2019, prior to the pandemic , it has raised over $300 million in venture capital investment to finance its growth and expansion. Its most notable rounds include a Series B of approximately $152 million , led by General Atlantic , a $70 million Series C that combined equity and debt, as well as earlier rounds such as a $65 million Series A and a previous seed round.
The closure of Jüsto comes in a complex context for 100% digital supermarkets in Latin America , a segment that in recent years has faced significant obstacles related to logistics costs, inventory control, reduced margins and high levels of shrinkage.
In this regard, Santiago Pineda, CEO and co-founder of Mensajeros Urbanos , raised a key point on the Latin American venture capital ecosystem through his social media, noting that over $1.2 billion was invested in companies like Jüsto, Frubana, JOKR, and Merqueo that have now closed or gone bankrupt.
Far from discrediting the entrepreneurs behind these projects, Pineda was emphatic in stressing that all those founders “are geniuses ” and deserve admiration for having built companies capable of attracting some of the most sophisticated funds in the world.
He specified that the investments came from firms such as General Atlantic, Tiger Global, SoftBank, Monashees, Lightspeed, and Kaszek —funds with extremely rigorous selection processes and a deep understanding of their business: risk. These investors know that many of the startups in their portfolio will not survive, but they bet on those that show a higher probability of success, though never a guarantee. Furthermore, when they decide to invest, they do not do so on lenient terms: they establish demanding valuations, strong clauses, and preferential liquidity rights that place investors ahead of founders in any exit scenario.
Pineda explained that much of this dynamic developed during 2020 and 2021, in an unprecedented global liquidity environment resulting from the pandemic, with interest rates close to zero and an abundance of capital looking for where to be placed.
In that scenario, funds began issuing increasingly larger checks, leading to inflated valuations. Entrepreneurs, driven by this excess capital and the narrative of rapid growth, accepted, and in many cases sought, higher valuations, creating a vicious cycle.
When global liquidity tightened and the market returned to more normal conditions, valuations plummeted . This created a severe misalignment of incentives: for funds, reinvesting meant recognizing accounting losses; for entrepreneurs, raising new capital became nearly impossible. Many startups were forced to attempt an abrupt transition to profitability, some successfully and others not, as capital dwindled.
Finally, Pineda highlighted a little-known point: many founders who decided to continue did so knowing they would likely never see a personal financial return due to preferential liquidity rights. In many cases, current valuations don’t even cover the invested capital.
But let’s consider the logistics aspect , for example. In this area, and right up to the end, Jüsto explained that, until the closing date, some services would be limited and certain functionalities might be disabled in advance, in order to ensure an orderly process.
When consulted, a former collaborator from the platform’s operational area told T21 that the closure also reflects internal challenges accumulated over time, starting with an organizational culture that is not very focused on talent development.
“There was a zero-tolerance culture focused on people. In the time I worked there, I only saw the founder three times, and we never received a glance or a greeting from him,” he recounted.
According to this testimony, on an operational level, inventory management never stabilized . Despite investment in technology, stockout levels and shrinkage remained high, resulting in significant losses due to waste .
“There were weeks with losses of up to 700,000 pesos due to mismanagement. Since these were investment funds, the waste was assumed to be something that could happen without real consequences,” he explained.
Furthermore, the outcome was predictable given market behavior and precedents in the region.
“Seeing the failures of JOKR, Frubana, and Merqueo, only Jüsto remained. None of them worked. Perhaps Latin America isn’t the ideal market for this type of startup ,” the source noted.
The closure of Jüsto marks the end of one of the most ambitious attempts to fully digitize the supermarket in Mexico, and offers lessons on the limits of accelerated growth, talent management, and logistical complexity in capital-intensive models.
Meanwhile, the company reiterated its gratitude to customers, producers, and collaborators who were part of the project, and confirmed that December 15, 2025 would be its last day of operations.
Main image taken from X’s account: @justo_mex .
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