Auctionata
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
Auctionata
You can read more about their failure here.
Beepi
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:
Beepi
You can read more about their failure here.
Crowdmix
Crowdmix was a music streaming platform where people could listen and talk about their favorite bands. They spent £14M before having a working product.
Details of the startup:
Crowdmix
You can read more about their failure here.
DotCloud
dotCloud was a PaaS for developers that enabled them to host, assemble and run their applications. They could not sustain operation costs by themselves.
Details of the startup:
DotCloud
You can read more about their failure here.
Fuhu
Fuhu was a seller of cloud-served software. After reaching Top 1 on Inc 500, the company amassed an enormous amount of debt and had a very high burn rate.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
John Hui, Robb Fujioka, Steve Hui
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2006
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
500-1,000
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Mismanagement of Funds
Fuhu
You can read more about their failure here.
Radar Radio
Radar Radio, a hub for emerging music talent online, ceased operations amidst a debt of £3.6M. Here's their story.
Details of the startup:
Radar Radio
You can read more about their failure here.
RewardMe
RewardMe was a real-time intelligent CRM Platform for Local Commerce. They wanted to scale up the company prematurely, which lead to their shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Jun Loayza, Stephen Johnson, Yu-kai Chou
Country:
United States
Industry:
Marketing
Started in:
2010
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
RewardMe
You can read more about their failure here.
SchoolGennie
SchoolGennie provided solutions that saved time, reduced costs, and helped make better decisions on schools. But they didn’t test their product-market fit.
Details of the startup:
SchoolGennie
You can read more about their failure here.
Skully
Skully was a helmet targetting motorcycle riders. They had to close shops due to no fundings and couldn't complete the production of the pre-orders.
Details of the startup:
Skully
You can read more about their failure here.
Theranos
Theranos was a way to predict diseases with small blood samples. They raised $1.4B but legal investigations pointed out it was a fraud and shut down.
Details of the startup:
Theranos
You can read more about their failure here.
Tilt
Tilt was a social payments startup. The CEO was believed to become the next Zuckerberg. However, lack of focus led to shutting down their operations.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
James Beshara, Karolyn Baxter, Khaled Hussein
Country:
United States
Industry:
Finances
Started in:
2012
Closed in:
2017
Nº of employees:
100-250
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Focus
Tilt
You can read more about their failure here.
Utrip
Utrip was a travel planning startup that used AI to create personalized itineraries. Keeping the recommendation engine alive was too much for them.
Details of the startup:
Utrip
You can read more about their failure here.
WOW Air
WOW Air was the Icelandic answer to RyanAir for low-cost air travel in Europe. The cause of failure was that they wanted to become too big too fast.
Details of the startup:
WOW Air
You can read more about their failure here.
Zirtual
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
Zirtual
You can read more about their failure here.