The archive · Money & Fintech · Financial decision · 2019–2022
Fast's $124M one-click checkout bet died in April 2022 after a $102M Stripe-led round
Fast bet one universal login could make checkout one click everywhere; $124M raised, ~$600K 2021 revenue, shut down April 2022, engineers hired by Affirm.
Fast
What the business is
Fast was a one-click checkout platform: shoppers registered once with email and card details, then checked out of any partner store with a single click instead of filling forms.
Starting capital：$124.5M total raised (Crunchbase via TechCrunch): a $20M Stripe-led Series A (2020) and a $102M Series B led by Stripe and Addition (Jan 2021)
How it started
Founded in San Francisco in 2019 by Domm Holland — whose earlier Australian startup Tow.com.au, an 'Uber of towing,' had been liquidated in 2018 amid a billing dispute (per NPR, cited by TechCrunch) — and Allison Barr Allen. Fast's bet was that a single login could make checkout disappear everywhere on the internet.
What happened
Stripe led Fast's $20M Series A in 2020 and its $102M Series B on Jan 26, 2021; Fast told TechCrunch its GMV had 'more than tripled each month.' But by year-end 2021 revenue was roughly $600,000, burn was reported as high as $10M/month, and PitchBook showed a last post-money valuation near $580M. Fast signed The Honest Company on Mar 28, 2022, but The Information reported its growth was slow and its fundraising options had run out.
How it ended up
Fast shut down on April 4, 2022. CEO Domm Holland told staff the company lacked financial resources to continue; employees were laid off, the brand and products were discontinued, and Affirm gave offers to a 'vast majority' of Fast's engineers while explicitly saying it had no plans to enter one-click checkout (TechCrunch).
Background
Fast was a San Francisco startup founded in 2019 by Domm Holland and Allison Barr Allen to make online checkout a single click. Shoppers registered once with their email and card details; on any merchant using Fast's button, they skipped the form entirely. The company sold merchants on higher conversion and positioned itself against Amazon's one-click checkout and the wave of checkout startups like Bolt.
The money flowed fast: a $20M Series A led by Stripe in 2020, then a $102M Series B led by Stripe and Addition announced Jan 26, 2021, for $124M raised in total. At the time Fast claimed GMV 'more than tripled each month.' But TechCrunch's March 30, 2022 report, citing The Information, put Fast's 2021 revenue near $600,000, with burn reported as high as $10 million a month — a ratio no investor could ignore as markets cooled.
On April 4, 2022 Fast told staff it lacked the financial resources to continue and shut down. Affirm offered jobs to a 'vast majority' of Fast's engineers but made clear it did not want the product or brand. The one-click checkout race continued without Fast, and its story became a reference point for how much of 2021's venture boom rested on growth theater.
What has to be true
- Fast's own pitch was growth-first: it told TechCrunch at its Series B that GMV had 'more than tripled each month,' yet 2021 revenue landed near $600K — a gap visible in the reporting.
- Burn of up to $10M/month against six-figure revenue made survival depend entirely on the next round, which never came as fundraising tightened in early 2022.
- The checkout market was crowded and well-funded: Bolt, Checkout.com and Rapyd raised roughly $927M combined in the same weeks as Fast's Series B, so a thin product lead was easy to lose.
- Even the landing was talent-only: Affirm absorbed most Fast engineers but explicitly declined the product, showing the market valued the team, not the bet.
What can be applied
A nine-figure round is a loan against unproven growth: when revenue is ~$600K against $10M/month burn, the company lives only until the next round — which never came.
Aftermath
As of 2026-09-02 Fast is defunct: its checkout services and brand were discontinued in April 2022, Affirm absorbed most of its engineers, and no acquirer took on the product. The one-click checkout space consolidated around Bolt, Shop Pay and native wallets.
Sources
- Fast shuts doors after slow growth, high burn precluded fundraising options
- Fast raises $102M as the online checkout wars continue to attract huge investment
- Whither the paper unicorns?
- Affirm is giving job offers to the 'vast majority' of Fast engineers
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