For a time, Jüsto seemed to prove that grocery shopping could be reinvented from a phone. But behind the growth and investment rounds, the model never solved a simple equation: making each order leave more than it cost to deliver.

Founded in 2019, the company launched with the promise of cutting out intermediaries and taking the purchase straight to the consumer. Delivering on that promise, however, meant owning the entire chain—inventory, distribution centers, and last mile—in a business with thin margins, high shrink, and steep logistics costs, where the average ticket rarely covers the operation.

In Mexico, Jüsto operated roughly 16,500 square meters of industrial space across Mexico City, the State of Mexico, Jalisco, and Querétaro, according to SiiLA and the company. That footprint shows the model was anything but light: it carried fixed costs, operational intensity, and a scale that demanded sustained profitability to work.

In its early years, that gap between revenue and costs was not noticeable. The pandemic-fueled surge in e-commerce lifted demand and allowed the operation to move forward without exposing its weaknesses. The company expanded coverage, infrastructure, and headcount financed by venture capital—not operating cash flow—in a world where money was abundant and the priority was scale.

By 2020, Jüsto had already raised more than $21 million in bridge rounds after posting triple-digit growth, aiming to expand in Mexico City and enter Jalisco, Nuevo León, and Puebla. Three years later, with more than $300 million raised from investors such as Bimbo Ventures, FEMSA Ventures, Foundation Capital, General Atlantic, and Mountain Nazca—plus bank financing—the company was also operating in Brazil and Peru, with plans to expand into Colombia and Chile. Along the way, it struck logistics and commercial partnerships with platforms such as Amazon and Rappi, betting on volume and reach. But expansion outpaced profitability, and thus, by the end of last year, operations in Brazil and Peru were shut down, signaling that capital-funded growth had not fixed the model’s core problem.

As conditions shifted—accelerating from 2022 onward, with higher rates, investors demanding discipline, and capital far less tolerant of losses—the model was laid bare, leaving Jüsto trapped between two worlds: without the scale and buying power of traditional retailers, and without the ability of marketplaces to shift operating risk to third parties.

From there, adjustments arrived when room to maneuver was already minimal. Raising prices, shrinking coverage, and cutting costs did not solve the issue, because each order still cost more to serve than it brought in. As a result, investor and supplier confidence eroded, accelerating the decline, and the operation began to retreat.

Jüsto stopped operating in Mexico on December 15 of this year “due to financial, operational, and strategic factors.” Put simply, it did not collapse for lack of demand or vision, but because in grocery, scale is decisive: costs do not wait, and margins do not forgive.

And while its exit does not signal a retreat of e-commerce for goods and services in Mexico—which today represents about 6% of national GDP and a quarter of the industrial area of the expanded consumer-products sector—it shows that not every digital model survives once capital stops covering losses.

For more details on tenants in the industrial real estate market, visit SiiLA Market Analytics or email contacto@siila.com.mx.