Hey — It’s Nico.

Welcome to another Failory edition. This issue takes 5 minutes to read.

These are the 5 most important things:

• Thrive, a Mumbai-based food-tech startup backed by Coca-Cola, shut down — learn why below.

• Resends' founder & CEO shared his startup growth framework.

• A founder shared his lessons from a failed computer vision startup.

• Elon Musk’s xAI landed $6B in financing.

• The ongoing 12 Days of OpenAI event has released some major features — check the most important ones below.

Let’s get into it.

This Week In Startups

🔗 Resources

A cold email handbook for founders.

Resends' founder & CEO shares his startup growth framework.

Founder shares lessons from a failed computer vision startup.

Culture, tools and frameworks that drive startup hyper-growth.

A guide on how to choose your target customer segment.

📰 News

26 startup groups urge EU Commissioners to involve more institutional investors in tech.

Dimension raises $500M for tech and life sciences investments.

Automattic acquires AI startup WPAI. 

The OpenAI Startup Fund raises $44M for its largest AI investment vehicle yet.

OpenAI makes AI video generator Sora available in the US.

💸 Fundraising

Elon Musk’s xAI lands $6B in equity financing.

Neobank Zopa secures €80M to fuel growth in 2025.

Speak raises $78M at a $1B valuation for its language learning app.

Zimi raises $2M to help international sellers break into the US market.

Fail(St)ory

Thrive’s Final Order

This week, Thrive, a Mumbai-based food-tech startup backed by Coca-Cola, announced it is shutting down after four years of operation. Despite its significant corporate backing, Thrive struggled to carve out a lasting presence in an industry dominated by giants.

What Was Thrive: Thrive entered the food-tech market in 2020, hoping to shake up India’s fiercely competitive food delivery scene. For context, the Indian market is dominated by two giants: Zomato and Swiggy. Both platforms have been around for over a decade, offering convenient food delivery services, extensive restaurant listings, and aggressive discounts that have cemented their place in Indian households. Competing against them is no small task—they have near-total market dominance, massive user bases, and deep pockets to outspend challengers.

Thrive positioned itself as a restaurant-friendly alternative. Unlike Zomato and Swiggy, which charge restaurants commissions of up to 25% per order, Thrive offered a much leaner pricing model. They introduced a tiered commission system: 14% for new customer orders and just 10% for repeat customers. For restaurants, this meant keeping more of their revenue, which was a welcome relief in an industry where every margin matters.

In April 2023, Coca-Cola acquired a 15% stake in Thrive, signaling confidence in the startup’s potential. Despite this boost and partnerships with over 14,000 restaurants across 80 cities, Thrive couldn’t escape the overwhelming competition, rising operational costs, and the challenge of convincing consumers to break their Zomato and Swiggy habits.

The Numbers:

• 📅 Founded in 2020.

• 🍴 Partnered with 14,000+ restaurants in 80 cities.

• 💰 Raised $2.5 million in funding across three rounds.

Reasons for Failure: 

• Fierce Competition: Thrive entered a market dominated by well-established giants like Zomato and Swiggy, which together control a significant share of India's food delivery industry. These platforms have extensive user bases, and strong brand recognition, making it extremely challenging for new entrants to gain a foothold. Thrive's co-founder and CEO, Krishi Fagwani, acknowledged this hurdle, stating that the current marketplace remains dominated by a few well-funded giants, making it extraordinarily challenging for smaller, mission-driven platforms like Thrive to flourish.

• Limited Funding: At first glance, Thrive's backing from Coca-Cola and its total funding of $2.5 million might seem substantial. However, when compared to the financial muscle of its competitors, this amount was modest. Zomato has raised around $3.4 billion, and Swiggy has raised $3.8 billion. This vast disparity in resources left Thrive struggling to scale operations, invest in marketing, and compete with the aggressive pricing strategies of its well-funded rivals.

• Consumer Habits: Despite offering better deals for restaurants, Thrive struggled to gain traction with consumers. Most food delivery users already had accounts with Zomato or Swiggy, where loyalty programs and app familiarity kept them engaged. Thrive needed a compelling reason to pull customers away from these giants, and their message didn’t resonate widely enough.

• Thinner Margins: Thrive’s lower commission rates were a double-edged sword. While they made the platform appealing to restaurants, they left the company with significantly less revenue per order. Operating on thinner margins meant Thrive had little financial flexibility to reinvest in growth, scale logistics, or offer aggressive discounts to attract new users. 

Why It Matters: 

• Lowering costs for partners like restaurants sounds great, but without a strong strategy to win over end users, it’s hard to create a sustainable business.

• In industries where consumer habits are deeply entrenched, winning over customers often requires incentives or innovation that create a real, immediate advantage.

• Competing against market leaders with deep pockets isn’t just about innovation; it’s about having the resources to scale quickly and sustain losses in the short term.

Trend

12 Days of OpenAI

OpenAI’s been feeling festive, and their "12 Days of OpenAI" event is proof. Every day for the past ten days, they’ve been unveiling shiny new features, and honestly? It’s like a little advent calendar for tech nerds. Here’s the rundown of the coolest stuff so far:

Day 1: Pro Mode

They started strong with ChatGPT Pro, a $200/month subscription that screams, “I’m serious about my AI.” What do you get? The beefy o1 Pro model for complex reasoning, and unlimited usage. It’s a power user’s dream—or, you know, their tax write-off.

Day 3: Sora

On the third day, OpenAI launched Sora, their much-anticipated text-to-video AI model. With Sora, users can generate high-quality videos from simple text prompts, animate images, and even remix existing videos. It's a creative game-changer, making video content creation more accessible than ever.

Day 6: Video in Advanced Voice

Midway through the event, OpenAI enhanced ChatGPT's capabilities by adding visual abilities to its Advanced Voice Mode. Now, ChatGPT can not only hear and speak but also see what's on your screen, providing more interactive and intuitive assistance.

Day 8: Search

On the eighth day, OpenAI rolled out SearchGPT to all users, including those on the free tier. This feature integrates a powerful search engine directly into ChatGPT, allowing for real-time web searches and up-to-date information retrieval. It's a significant step towards making AI interactions more informative and dynamic.

Day 10: 1-800-CHATGPT

Okay, this one’s hilarious. OpenAI launched a phone line for ChatGPT. Yes, you can literally call the AI. It’s basic compared to the app, but come on—it’s perfect for those moments when texting feels like too much effort.

And We’re Not Done Yet

With two days still to go, all eyes are on OpenAI to see how they’ll close out this lineup. There’s always the chance they’re saving the biggest surprise for the final day—so the anticipation is real. Whatever’s coming, it’s clear they’re keeping us hooked.

Help Me Improve Failory

That's all of this edition.

Cheers,

Nico