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The Marketplace sector is a competitive one.
But at the same time, it can be really lucrative.
Thousands of Marketplace startups have emerged in the last years and a lot of money has flown into them
However, the majority of these startups have since shut down.
In this article, you can find some of them as well as analysis on why they failed.
Everything you need to raise funding for your startup, including 3,500+ investors, 7 tools, 18 templates and 3 learning resources.
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Information about the industries, countries, and cities they generally invest in.
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Information about their valuation, HQ's location, founded year, name of founders, funding amount and number of employees.
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List of startup investors in the FinTech industry, along with their Twitter, LinkedIn, and email addresses.
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List of startup investors in the BioTech, Health, and Medicine industries, along with their Twitter, LinkedIn, and email addresses.
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List of 250 startup investors in the AI and Machine Learning industries, along with their Twitter, LinkedIn, and email addresses.
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99dresses was a fashion app that offered trades of second-hand designer dresses between users. It operated for a year but had to shut it down in 2014.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Nikki Durkin
Country:
Australia
Industry:
e-Commerce
Started in:
2010
Closed in:
2014
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
Multiple Reasons
You can read more about their failure here.
Alikolo was an eMarketplace company. The founder didn't have a clear vision and didn't know the reasons why customers purchased at his rivals.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Danny Taniwan
Country:
Indonesia
Industry:
e-Commerce
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
Auctionata was an online auction platform for art and luxury. Their issues originated from unethical behavior, lack of transparency, and lies by the CEO.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Alexander Gilkes, Alexander Zacke, Georg Untersalmberger, Susanne Zacke
Country:
Germany
Industry:
e-Commerce
Started in:
2012
Closed in:
2017
Nº of employees:
250-500
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Legal Challenges
You can read more about their failure here.
Beepi was a marketplace for used cars. They ran out of cash to operate and tried to sell to potential buyers, but didn't achieve to close the operation.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Ale Resnik, Owen Savir
Country:
United States
Industry:
Transportation
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
100-250
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Mismanagement of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
CircleBack Lending was a loan marketplace. Due to problems with profitability and issues with the industry, the startup was forced to cease its operations.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Manoj Ramnani & Patrick Questembert
Country:
United States
Industry:
Finances
Started in:
2012
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Dazo was a food-tech startup based in Bangalore which emerged as a “food on demand” company. Fierce competition and lack of funding led to Dazo's failure.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Monica Rastogi, Shashaank Shekhar Singhal
Country:
India
Industry:
Food & Beverage
Started in:
2015
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
No Data
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Design Inc. linked clients to talented designers. They reached market saturation and the startup could not make enough revenue to cover operation costs.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Bjoern Zinssmeister, Marc Hemeon
Country:
United States
Industry:
Design
Started in:
2016
Closed in:
2017
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Flowtab was an app that solved the problem of long queues in bars. They tried several business models but never found a profitable one, so they shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Mike Townsend
Country:
United States
Industry:
Food & Beverage
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2013
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
HiGear was a peer-to-peer online company that listed luxury cars for rent. A criminal gang stole four cars worth $400k. They opted to shut down operations.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Ali Moiz, Murtaza Hussain
Country:
United States
Industry:
Transportation
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2011
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Legal Challenges
You can read more about their failure here.
Karhoo was a cab aggregator. It was out of business after 6 months of operation. Poor management and bad execution of a good concept were the main causes.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Daniel Ishag
Country:
United Kingdom
Industry:
Transportation
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Poor Product
You can read more about their failure here.
Kitchit brought local chefs to your home. They had to compete with other big food providers in the same market, which provoked their failure.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Brendan Marshall, Ian Ferguson
Country:
United States
Industry:
Food & Beverage
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Koinex was a cryptocurrency exchange platform. India's laws got harsh against cryptocurrencies and the obstacles and little profits led to its shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Aditya Naik, Rahul Raj, Rakesh Yadav
Country:
India
Industry:
Finances
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2019
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
No Data
Specific cause of failure:
Legal Challenges
You can read more about their failure here.
Laurel & Wolf was a marketplace for interior design solutions. They shut down due to large spendings on marketing and a bad reputation among customers.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Brandon Kleinman, Leura Fine
Country:
United States
Industry:
e-Commerce
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
Active
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Multiple Reasons
You can read more about their failure here.
Move Loot was an online resale marketplace for furniture. They decided to have a furniture stockroom without thinking about the expenses of running it.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Bill Bobbitt, Jenny Karin Morrill, Ryan Smith, Shruti Shah
Country:
United States
Industry:
e-Commerce
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
PepperTap provided a platform to buy and deliver groceries from local markets. Customers found delivery fees too expensive for their needs, and shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Milind Sharma, Navneet Singh
Country:
India
Industry:
Food & Beverage
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
1,000-5,000
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Poor Product
You can read more about their failure here.
RoomsTonite was a last-minute hotel booking app for people traveling to India. They raised $1.5M in funding but the money didn't arrive and they shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Suresh John
Country:
India
Industry:
Travel
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2017
Nº of employees:
100-250
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
SellanApp connected people who had an idea for an app with app developers that could materialize it. It failed due to an unhealthy co-founder partnership.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Aernoud Dekker, Milan van den Bovenkamp
Country:
The Netherlands
Industry:
Finances
Started in:
2012
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
Failure to Pivot
You can read more about their failure here.
Selltag was a web-based buy & sell platform. The CEO realized their business model would not be sustainable in the long term and shut it down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Javier Escribano, Ruben Colomer, Juan Luis Hortelano, Walter Kobylanski
Country:
Spain
Industry:
e-Commerce
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
Failure to Pivot
You can read more about their failure here.
Sharinger was a marketplace for musicians to rent their instruments. They focused on a market that was too small and the business model was unsustainable.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Mircea Gabriel Eftemie
Country:
Denmark
Industry:
Music
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
Multiple Reasons
You can read more about their failure here.
Shyp imitated the Uber model with an on-demand shipping service. However, they were unable to figure out a profitable business model and had to shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Jack Smith, Joshua Scott, Kevin Gibbon
Country:
United States
Industry:
Transportation
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2018
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Multiple Reasons
You can read more about their failure here.
Sidecar was a transportation company. They had top-notch technology but no marketing strategy, and could only become useful in high-density cities.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Jahan Khanna, Sunil Paul
Country:
United States
Industry:
Transportation
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Stayzilla, once a thriving homestay network with $33.5M in funding, closed due to unsustainable operational costs and consistent financial losses.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Rupal Yogendra, Sachit Singhi, Sachit Singhi, Yogendra Vasupal
Country:
India
Industry:
Travel
Started in:
2005
Closed in:
2017
Nº of employees:
250-500
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Focus
You can read more about their failure here.
TakeEatEasy enabled restaurants to provide a reliable delivery service for their customers. Their margins were insufficient and closed doors after 3 years.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Adrien Roose, Chloé Roose, Jean-Christophe Libbrecht, Karim Slaoui
Country:
Belgium
Industry:
Food & Beverage
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
100-250
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Tutorspree wanted to enhance tutoring. Their vision of pairing up tutors and students to meet up in person was not practical, which made it shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Aaron Harris, Josh Abrams, Ryan Bednar
Country:
United States
Industry:
Education
Started in:
2010
Closed in:
2013
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Marketing
You can read more about their failure here.
Zirtual was a virtual assistant marketplace for busy entrepreneurs. Its management and the high burn rate brought the firm on the verge of bankruptcy.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Collin Vine, Erik Jensen, Maren Kate Donovan
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
100-250
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Mismanagement of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Zoomo's goal was to build trust in the Indian used cars market. The buy-and-sell vehicle market was relatively young in India and decided to shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Arnav Kumar, Himangshu Hazarika
Country:
India
Industry:
Transportation
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Matthew founded Adproval, a marketplace to connect blogging and social media influencers with brands. Raised around $300k in funds and made $200/mo from their self-service software for bloggers. In the end, they made over $200k in revenue from consulting services but it wasn't enough.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Matthew Anderson
Country:
United States
Industry:
Marketing
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$100K-$500K
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Boston Apartment Hub was an apartment listing site for the Boston area. The idea was probably too ahead of its time.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Jon Sherman
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2006
Closed in:
2007
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
While in university, Kaito started Community Coders, a business that connected companies looking for web development and digital marketing services with high school students. However, as the months went over, it became difficult to close deals and the startup began to lose its course until they shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Kaito Cunningham
Country:
Canada
Industry:
Education
Started in:
2018
Closed in:
2020
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Management
You can read more about their failure here.
Andrey Norin is a budding entrepreneur, responsible for all the successes and the failures of ExploreVR. This was a directory site focused 100% on virtual reality. He started it in 2017 and shut down a few months later. His lack of experience in creating a business from scratch was the main cause of failure.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Andrey Norin
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
GawkBox was a platform where viewers of live streams could play mobile games to donate real money to streamers. Chris co-founded this as his first startup and he was able to successfully raise $4.4M in venture funding, which the startup invested in marketing until they achieved 500k users and more than $1M in revenue. However, multiple mistakes and a series of reasons led to their shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Christopher Brownridge
Country:
United States
Industry:
Entertainment
Started in:
2016
Closed in:
2019
Funding Amount:
$1M-$5M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
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Hot Barber was a website that let hair stylists set up profiles and customers browse portfolios, but the founders couldn't find a way to monetize it!
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Julia Enthoven
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Howell Market was an online store where individual sellers could go to sell their products. Cody, the founder, partnered with his family and friends, but things didn’t work out as his partners weren’t passionate about the vision of the company.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Cody Howell
Country:
United States
Industry:
e-Commerce
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Management
You can read more about their failure here.
Jasmeet is an Indian software engineer who a few years ago decided to build new revenue strategies for his business directory and decided to build a job board with a unique offline-online model. But their idea was too ahead to the time and, due to a bad business model, they had to shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Jasmeet Singh
Country:
India
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
In 2014, Aazar, a Pakistani entrepreneur, decided to create an Uber for logistics and awkward items trying to solve a problem he and many other people were having: Bringing items from Pakistan to Germany. He soon validated the idea and built the product. But a combination of bad marketing and bad team fit led to their failure.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Aazar Shad
Country:
Germany
Industry:
Transportation
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2016
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Marketing
You can read more about their failure here.
Michael founded LocalTown, an online marketplace built using no-code tools. After noticing a lot of makers needed help with launching their side projects, he started building tools to solve the problems of that niche.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Michael Novotny
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2016
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
Onepagetrip was a travel itinerary sharing community. Not having a plan to make money from the beginning was a stupid rookie mistake.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Ana Santos
Country:
Australia
Industry:
Travel
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2015
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
QuickHaggle was a community in which online users could exchange their skills. However, just like in old age, with the barter system, it became really difficult to find people who were looking for your service, and in exchange, could carry out what you needed. After some months, Bilal decided to shut it down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Bilal Ahmad
Country:
Pakistan
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2010
Closed in:
2011
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Steven was co-founder at Rent Nest, an app that allowed users to collect and share information on houses to rent. They raised some money from friends and were soon accepted on a startup accelerator. Throughout two years, the startup grew to $12k/mo, but they were spending +$40k/mo, which led them to eventually running out of funds and shutting down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Steven Glod
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2012
Closed in:
2014
Funding Amount:
< $100K
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Talking with her manicurist, Margaret got to know some of the common challenges beauty service providers faced in Armenia. Her startup Sofetch aimed to solve some of these. She hired a developer to build it and as she was beginning to prepare the launch, COVID happened and the beauty industry was disrupted. She tried pivoting, but nothing worked so she decided to move on to a new startup idea.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Margaret Rostamian
Country:
Armenia
Industry:
Health
Started in:
2019
Closed in:
2020
Funding Amount:
< $100K
Specific cause of failure:
Failure to Pivot
You can read more about their failure here.
Andrew Davison is one of the automation kings. He is a Zapier Certified Expert and an Integromat Partner running Luhhu, a business automation agency. Before that, he built Teacher Finder, a marketplace for language teachers. It didn’t take off, but using Zapier each day helped him start his agency.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Andrew Davison
Country:
Hungary
Industry:
Education
Started in:
2015
Closed in:
2020
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Gene founded VacationBird, a marketplace for finding your vacation rental. It was an early version of Airbnb and a VRBO competitor. Having a misalignment of incentives between co-founders and poor planning were the main causes to shut it down in 2012.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Gene Maryushenko
Country:
United States
Industry:
Travel
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2012
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
Vyacheslav is a software engineer who in 2017 decided to build a board for remote jobs on the IT industry. He built it using his programming knowledge and invite a list of contacts he knew to try the product. But he soon realized he couldn’t handle everything and that keeping up the project would require a lot of time and people. It wasn’t going to pay off, so he shut it down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Vyacheslav Grzhybovsky
Country:
Latvia
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
Tauras is a 30-year old entrepreneur from Lithuania. With the objective of digitizing the wedding planning process, he co-founded WedMap. They launched the tool within some months and carried out a vast number of marketing strategies, which led to a monthly revenue of $2k. However, different problems on team, resources, skills, and product meant WedMap’s failure.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Tauras Sinkus
Country:
Switzerland
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2015
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
