Anta bets on localisation to take its multibrand playbook across Southeast Asia
Six brands, country managers hired locally and a brand-per-market matching rule have Anta's Southeast Asia retail sales nearly doubling.
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2,000 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDAnimoto rebuilt on AWS in 2007 and scaled from 25,000 to 250,000 users in four days
Animoto dropped its own servers for then-unproven Amazon EC2; in 2008 a Facebook app pushed its EC2 use from 50-100 to 3,400 instances in a week.
Read the caseZomato exits 225 small cities that produced 0.3% of orders to fix its payback math
In January 2023 Zomato pulled out of around 225 smaller cities — 0.3% of GOV but unacceptable payback — saying the cost impact was 'not very material'.
Read the caseZomato bet on 10-minute food from its own finishing stations, then rebranded it
Zomato Instant delivered 20-30 dishes in 10 minutes from company-run stations; a year in, Zomato denied a shutdown report and said it was rebranding.
Read the caseUnacademy pitched a SaaS tool called Cohesive to rivals while laying off 1,000
Amid two layoff rounds in two months, the $3.4B edtech bet on selling development-environment software — with an estimated $500K ARR and 'an AWS' ambition.
Read the caseTeenage Engineering's CEO says it will stop making the synths that made it
Per a Highsnobiety interview, CEO Jesper Kouthoofd told his team in a fall reorganization that TE plans to stop making synthesizers — OP-1 included.
Read the caseRainmaker seeded clouds over an Alaska town without telling anyone — 19M gallons claimed
The startup's drones seeded clouds over Homer, Alaska in August 2026, claiming 19 million gallons in three hours — drawing criticism for secrecy.
Read the casePurplebricks quit Australia after 2.5 years, taking founder-CEO Michael Bruce out
The UK fixed-fee agent transplanted its home-market model onto Australia's auction system, burned millions on ads, and exited in May 2019 as its founder left.
Read the casePearl Abyss remade its PC hit Black Desert for mobile and crashed Korea's servers
Black Desert Mobile launched in Korea on 28 February 2018 with 5M+ preregistrations — then had to shut servers to fix launch-day errors.
Read the casePaytm rebuilt its banned UPI cashback game in 10 days to fit Google's Play rules
After Google pulled Paytm from the Play Store over its cricket cashback game, Paytm redesigned the promo around stickers and got back in business
Read the casePatanjali's swadeshi WhatsApp rival Kimbho vanished from the Play Store in a day
The consumer-goods group launched a messaging app to take on WhatsApp, then pulled it within 24 hours over security and performance flaws.
Read the caseOpenAI opened ChatGPT Plus in India after days of failed card payments
Indian users spent two days getting cards rejected for GPT-4 subscriptions — enough failed attempts that OpenAI switched on India on 17 March 2023.
Read the caseMovile's next iFood bet is white-label fintech via Zoop, backed by Prosus (interview)
CEO Patrick Hruby told BNamericas a fresh R$1 billion from Prosus will push Movile's next big thesis — fintech via Zoop — toward iFood's size.
Read the caseMonzo burned €29M building its Dublin EU hub before launching in Ireland in 2026
Monzo Bank Europe lost €28.8M in 18 months, took a €71M parent injection and an Irish licence, then launched to a 100,000-person waitlist
Read the caseMcDonald's bets $8.5B on franchisees and a 'Next' overhaul to win customers back
With US visits falling and shares down 32% from February's peak, McDonald's unveiled a 10-year, $8.5B franchisee support plan called McDonald's > Next.
Read the caseM&S opened more India stores while shutting 100 at home — small cities carried growth
As M&S planned to close about 100 stores worldwide by 2022, its India JV crossed Rs 1,000 crore in sales, posted a first profit, and pushed into small cities.
Read the caseLSE shut CurveGlobal, its failed challenge to Europe's bond futures incumbents
After five years and about £61M from its backers, London Stock Exchange Group shut CurveGlobal, the loss-making bet to break ICE and Deutsche Börse's grip.
Read the caseLottie buys 25-year-old CareMaster billing to own the whole UK care journey
Lottie acquired CareMaster — billing software at ~75 providers and 750+ care homes — aiming for £3bn of annual invoicing by H1 2027.
Read the caseKlarna rebooted its COVID-hit Australian launch on CBA's $100M partnership
Weeks after its January 2020 launch, Klarna's Australian downloads fell from 5,000 to 1,000 a day; it leaned on CBA's channel and re-ramped marketing from June.
Read the caseKitanotatsujin bet conservative Japan would wear microneedle beauty patches
Its Hyalo Deep Patch became Japan's first needle-type hyaluronic acid cosmetic and a mega-hit selling one unit every four seconds.
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