5 Failed Startups Founded in Berlin
Here’s a list of 5 failed startups from Berlin.
Some of them were big, with huge teams and funding rounds.
Others were smaller, ran by the co-founders, and with no funding.
But all of them shut down.
And each for a specific cause of failure.
5 Failed Startups Founded in Berlin
1) 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
You can read more about their failure here.
2) Moped
Moped was a free social app. It had not enough entertaining and fast-growing content that could attract a broad mass of users. It closed after 16 years.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Schuyler Deerman
- Country: Germany
- Industry: Social Media
- Started in: 1998
- Closed in: 2014
- Nº of employees: 10-50
- Funding Amount: $1M-$10M
- Specific cause of failure: No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
3) Flux
Flux was a modular multi messaging client. They raised a small angel round of 70K € and invested another 15K €. A combination of many issues led to their failure.
Details of the startup:
- Founder: Jan Johannes
- Country: Germany
- Industry: Software & Hardware
- Started in: 2011
- Closed in: 2016
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Management
You can read more about their failure here.
4) Rent Nest
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
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
5) Young Entrepreneurs' Program
Fabian founded Young Entrepreneurs Program, a one-year educational program for entrepreneurs aged 17 to 23. After 2 years and 150,000€ spent, they had 30,000€ in ARR and had to shut down due to no product-market fit.
Details of the startup:
- Founder: Fabian Tausch
- Country: Germany
- Industry: Education
- Started in: 2018
- Closed in: 2020
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
