8/
RIP Rebel Energy 🪦
I loved your early enlistment into SEG and were excited about a release of a weekend tariff.

7/
In short:
• High CAC
• High bad debt
• Cheap(ish) variable pricing
• Expensive fixes
• Chaotic white label plays
They tried to grow like a fintech. But forgot they were in energy retailer.

6/
And while cool on paper their white label plays were probably not the best for PnL.
They tried to partner with UrbanChain — total chaos.
Then they white-labeled to Ebico, a supplier focused on fuel-poor households… while running a broken ops model?

5/
Debt was a huge issue too.
As most people in the space who work on energy debt know, loads of Rebel customers seemed to be disproportionately represented.

4/
They got cheeky and undercut the price cap.
Jan/Feb price spikes meant disaster.

3/
This let them scale fast.
They (re)launched around the same time as Fuse, but picked up 80k domestic and 10k non-domestic customers, but without the money in the bank.

2/
Rebel’s growth strategy?
Partner with letting agencies + mid-tier switching sites like Homebox, Switchroo, Goodlord.
Their tariffs were uncompetitive, but they paid brokers massive acquisition fees.

1/
Two key reasons they failed:
• Acquiring customers at sky-high costs
• Customers not paying their bills