Why highest funded ($83m) Airlift shutting down in Pakistan?

Airlift Shutdown

News related to shutting down operations of one of the big startups Airlift has been floating in the different spaces since July 12, 2022.

I am trying to understand why Airlift such a big startup is shutting down suddenly.

After going through a few blogs, I found some important lessons

  1. Airlift had been working on the belief to get more customers, scale their business and become profitable. Maybe they ignored some facts about the local market and the type of business they are in.
    Increasing the Client list is not directly proportional to more profit.
  2. 900,000+ local Karyana Stores are accessible with cheap house labour.
  3. A global funding crunch, rising inflation and increasing gas prices are impacting aggressively busying power and company operational cost. So people are not willing to pay for facilities like immediate grocery delivery.
  4. Above all, the global economic meltdown has made services like Airlift more expensive. For a long time, likewise, startups have been using VC’s money to subsidize their running cost. So investor tightens their fists and they are not convenient to move with the same strategy.

What Airlift Fulfillment Network was performing?

Airlift operates an advanced network of mid-fulfillment centers that receive inventory from manufacturers and suppliers. By using artificial intelligence to forecast demand, our platform moves consumer goods from fulfillment centers to dark stores, and ultimately to our customers.

Airlift’s algorithms constantly study trends in consumer demand and identify patterns to replenish dark stores. For each order delivered via our platform, there are more than 22 technology-enabled backend-processes that must work flawlessly.

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