Post-mortem. Fast (fast.co) closed in April 2022. The account below was written after the end, with the outcome known. Separately, a blind test with the evidence cut off at October 2020, before the end, returned: not called safe. How the blind test works.

Fast (fast.co)

Defunct one-click checkout startup that let users skip retyping payment info online

Blind testEvidence cut off October 2020 · Ended April 2022 · Result: not called safe

What happened

Company publicly announced shutdown of its checkout service (April 2022)

Why it did not hold

Fast burned $124.5M building a checkout button that Stripe, Shopify, and Amazon could and did build themselves, then it shut down in April 2022.

Fast built a one-click checkout tool that let shoppers buy things faster online. The problem was that Shopify, Stripe, Amazon, and PayPal could all build the same thing themselves because Fast had no special data, no locked-in stores, and no exclusive technology. When these bigger companies started adding fast checkout to their own products, Fast could not compete and ran out of money.

AI pressure: None apparent. Company shut down in April 2022 before agentic AI checkout tools existed; AI was not the cause of its collapse.

Bigger players: Shopify (Shop Pay), Stripe (Link), Amazon Pay, PayPal one-touch checkout. Stripe, Fast's own lead investor, shipped Link with the same one-click function natively, and Fast collapsed months later with no acquirer.

What protected it. None existed: no proprietary data, no merchant lock-in beyond about 1,000 sites, no regulatory cover, feature copyable by any platform.

Timeline

2022-04-15Fast permanently ceases operating its checkout service
2022-04-05CEO Domm Holland announces Fast is shutting down
2022-04Affirm offers jobs to majority of Fast's engineers; no company acquisition
2022-03-28The Honest Company partners with Fast for one-click checkout, days before collapse
2021-01Fast raises 102 million dollar Series B led by Stripe
2020-03-26Fast raises 20 million dollar Series A led by Stripe
2019-03Fast founded in San Francisco by Domm Holland, Allison Barr Allen, Joshua Abulafia

Also gone

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This page is a post-mortem, not a live assessment, and it carries no band. The blind-test result is the only part made without knowledge of the outcome.