Learn how to validate your startup idea by pre-selling it, for only $80 (includes a free 1-hour consultancy call).
Download Our List of The Top 100 Accelerators & Incubators

This free sheet contains 100 accelerators and incubators you can apply to today, along with information about the industries and stages they generally invest in.

100 Accelerators & Incubators
Download The List of the 100 Highest-Valued Unicorns

This free sheet contains all the information about the top 100 unicorns, including their valuation, HQ's location, founded year, name of founders, funding amount and number of employees.

100 Top Unicorns
Download The List of the 100 Highest-Valued Unicorns

This free sheet contains all the information about the top 100 unicorns, including their valuation, HQ's location, founded year, name of founders, funding amount and number of employees.

100 Top Unicorns
Get Free Access to The Founder's Handbook

This free Notion document contains the best 100+ resources you need for building a successful startup, divided in 4 categories: Fundraising, People, Product, and Growth.

The Founder's Handbook

5 Failed Design Startups & their Case Studies

Successful brands value customer experience and smart founders use PartnerHero to up-level their CX without breaking the bank. Invest in flexible, affordable outsourced customer ops to grow your startup.

Book a Free Consultation Call →

There are a lot of things to consider when building a new startup - where to get funding, how to validate your idea, and what features should the product have.

One of the challenges is finding a market that is willing to pay for your solution without even knowing what it is yet.

However, 90% of startups will fail and shut down.

In this article, you can find 5 failed Design startups as well as analyses on why they closed down.


5 Failed Design Startups

Accelerators & Incubators List
Sheet
2,658 Accelerators & Incubators

Information about the industries, stages and countries they generally invest in.

Get the Sheet for $50
Complete Unicorns List
Sheet
1,016 Unicorns

Information about their valuation, HQ's location, founded year, name of founders, funding amount and number of employees.

Get the Sheet for $50
Complete Unicorns List
Sheet
1,016 Unicorns

Information about their valuation, HQ's location, founded year, name of founders, funding amount and number of employees.

Get the Sheet for $50

Ad

On Deck's Logo

On Deck is where top talent comes to accelerate their ideas and build companies, surrounded by a world-class community.

Berg

Berg

Berg was a cloud platform on which Little Printer, an IoT device, worked. They had loyal supporters, but couldn't convert it into a sustainable business.

Details of the startup:

  • Founders:

    Matt Webb

  • Country:

    United Kingdom

  • Industry:

    Design

  • Started in:

    2005

  • 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.

Design Inc.

Design Inc.

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.

Fab

Fab

Fab was an e-commerce company focused on daily design inspiration. Its success resulted in companies launching their same exact replicas of Fab’s platform.

Details of the startup:

  • Founders:

    Bradford Shane Shellhammer, Deepa Shah, Jason Goldberg, Nishith Shah, Sunil Khedar

  • Country:

    United States

  • Industry:

    e-Commerce

  • Started in:

    2009

  • Closed in:

    2013

  • Nº of employees:

    500-1,000

  • Funding Amount:

    > $50M

  • Specific cause of failure:

    Multiple Reasons

You can read more about their failure here.

LayerVault

LayerVault

LayerVault helped you store, track, review, and deliver design work. However, they were unable to secure additional capital to sustain their services.

Details of the startup:

  • Founders:

    Allan Grinshtein, Kelly Sutton

  • Country:

    United States

  • Industry:

    Design

  • Started in:

    2011

  • Closed in:

    2014

  • Nº of employees:

    10-50

  • Funding Amount:

    < $1M

  • Specific cause of failure:

    Lack of Funds

You can read more about their failure here.

Pixate

Pixate

Pixate wanted to make prototyping and designing apps more accessible and effortless. It was acquired by Google in 2015, and after a year, it was shut down.

Details of the startup:

  • Founders:

    Kevin Lindsey, Paul Colton

  • Country:

    United States

  • Industry:

    Design

  • Started in:

    2012

  • Closed in:

    2016

  • Nº of employees:

    10-50

  • Funding Amount:

    $1M-$10M

  • Specific cause of failure:

    Acquisition Flu

You can read more about their failure here.

Successful brands value customer experience and smart founders use PartnerHero to up-level their CX without breaking the bank. Invest in flexible, affordable outsourced customer ops to grow your startup.

Book a Free Consultation Call →
The All-In-One Newsletter for Startup Founders

Every week, I’ll send you Failory’s latest interviews and articles and 3 curated resources for founders. Join +25,000 other startup founders!