Wound down its core car-subscription business in 2020 and sold remaining assets to Shift for ~$19M in 2022
The rise & fall
7 moments · 2016–2022
The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2016
🌱
2016
Founded
Scott Painter's app for flexible used-car leases — no fixed term, walk away anytime.
TechCrunch
2018
2018
Takes over Uber's driver leasing
A popular program renting cars to Uber drivers by the week becomes Fair's growth engine.
TechCrunch
2018
📈
2018
The peak: $1.2B on SoftBank money$1.2B
A SoftBank-backed megaround caps ~$500M of equity — plus billions available in debt — to fund the fleet.
Bloomberg
Oct 2019
💔
Oct 2019
40% of staff cut — the CFO too
The capital-intensive model buckles fast; a year after the megaround, nearly half the company is gone.
TechCrunch
2019
💬
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2019
Glassdoor reviews from the October 2019 layoff are brutal: staff described an operation so chaotic it couldn't locate most of its own cars, lavish perks at a fintech that couldn't manage its money, and laid-off employees losing their health benefits seven days later.
2020
🪦
2020
Winds down — joins the Unitard Club 💔
The flagship weekly-rental program for Uber drivers shuts; the car-subscription dream ends with it.
TechCrunch
2022
2022
Sold for scraps: ~$19M to Shift$19M
$566M of equity raised; the remaining dealer-listing assets fetch about $19M — a near-total loss for SoftBank.
Bloomberg
$1.19Bof peak value erased · 3 years
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
Fair was a SoftBank-backed startup that let consumers lease used cars through an app, and ran a popular program renting cars to Uber drivers by the week. It hit a ~$1.2B valuation after a ~$500M equity round in 2018, but its capital-intensive model unraveled fast: it cut 40% of staff and its CFO in 2019, wound down the Uber-driver program in 2020, and sold the remains to Shift for ~$19M in 2022.
Source: TechCrunch / Fortune / Bloomberg (SoftBank-backed car-subscription startup valued at ~$1.2B after raising ~$500M of equity plus billions in debt; laid off 40% of staff in 2019, wound down its flagship weekly-rental program for Uber drivers in 2020, and sold its remaining dealer-listing assets to Shift Technologies for ~$19M in 2022 — a near-total loss for SoftBank)
