This free sheet contains 100 accelerators and incubators you can apply to today, along with information about the industries they generally invest in.
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.
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.
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.
Countless startups around the world are being launched every week.
Many fail because they did not learn from the success of other companies who've managed to rise above.
We just published this list of 25 startups that failed due to not pivoting on time, along with analyses on why they shut down and interviews with their founders.
Everything you need to raise funding for your startup, including 3,500+ investors, 7 tools, 18 templates and 3 learning resources.
Buy It For $97 $297 →
Information about the industries, countries, and cities they generally invest in.
Get the Sheet for $50
Information about their valuation, HQ's location, founded year, name of founders, funding amount and number of employees.
Get the Sheet for $50Information about their valuation, HQ's location, founded year, name of founders, funding amount and number of employees.
Get the Sheet for $50
List of startup investors in the FinTech industry, along with their Twitter, LinkedIn, and email addresses.
Get the Sheet for $50
List of startup investors in the BioTech, Health, and Medicine industries, along with their Twitter, LinkedIn, and email addresses.
Get the Sheet for $50
List of 250 startup investors in the AI and Machine Learning industries, along with their Twitter, LinkedIn, and email addresses.
Get the Sheet for $50
Aria Insights developed highly advanced drones. After some pivots, the company couldn't find out the correct business model and had to shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Helen Greiner
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2008
Closed in:
2019
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Multiple Reasons
You can read more about their failure here.
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.
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.
HitMeUp was a web-based business commercial center. The founder had no tech background, and after launching 3 versions, they decided to shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Charlie Pool
Country:
United Kingdom
Industry:
e-Commerce
Started in:
2011
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.
Kno introduced double paneled e-textbooks. Despite raising $80M, the company saw its chances of scaling up diminish once Apple introduced its iconic iPad.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Babur Habib, Osman Rashid
Country:
United States
Industry:
Education
Started in:
2009
Closed in:
2013
Nº of employees:
+10,000
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Lookery gave statistics showcasing services that empowered organizations. It was based on Facebook platform, and after the redesign, they had to shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
David Cancel, Rex Dixon, Todd Sawicki
Country:
United States
Industry:
Marketing
Started in:
2007
Closed in:
2009
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Dependence on Others
You can read more about their failure here.
Monitor110 offered real-time monitoring services for Wall Street. They lost the edge they had by not validating the product and shut down in 2008.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Roger Ehrenberg
Country:
United States
Industry:
Analytics
Started in:
2003
Closed in:
2008
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Multiple Reasons
You can read more about their failure here.
OpTier provided customers with a business transaction monitoring platform. Little market share, revenue, and investment led to OpTier's failure.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Amir Alon, Motti Tal
Country:
United States
Industry:
Analytics
Started in:
2002
Closed in:
2014
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of PMF
You can read more about their failure here.
QBotix offered solar panels that tracked solar light. Their competitors' efficiency improved, making QBotix's innovative solar panels less cost-effective.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Wasiq Bokhari
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2010
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Rdio, a music streaming platform, failed due to poor marketing and distribution, ultimately folding to competition from Spotify and closing down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Carter Adamson, Janus Friis, Niklas Zennström
Country:
United States
Industry:
Music
Started in:
2008
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
ScaleFactor was a tech startup that claimed to automate SME bookkeeping and payroll thanks to an AI they were developing in-house, which wasn't the case.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Kurt Rathmann
Country:
United States
Industry:
Finances
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2020
Nº of employees:
100-250
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Poor Product
You can read more about their failure here.
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:
Founders:
Amit Gupta, Pardeep Goyal
Country:
India
Industry:
Education
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2014
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Experience
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.
Turntable.fm was a platform on which DJ and fans were brought together. The cost of running it proved to be too expensive and they had to shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Billy Chasen
Country:
United States
Industry:
Music
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2013
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Sam was one of the co-founders of Ansaro, a SaaS that aimed to revolutionize the recruiting industry through the use of technologies like AI. They raised $2.25M from institutional investors and $750K from friends and family, grew the team to 6 members and earned in total $100k. But with expenses of $70k/month and no product-market fit, they had to shut down 2 years later.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Sam Stone
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2016
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$1M-$5M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
BeehiveID was a startup on the dating market, that identified online accounts created for fraudulent use. Techstars and RightSide Capital decided to invest $70K on their business. However, after some months BeehiveID closed their doors. Being too dependent on Facebook data killed their startup.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Mary Haskett
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2015
Funding Amount:
< $100K
Specific cause of failure:
Dependence on Others
You can read more about their failure here.
Kyril is the founder of DotaHaven, a gaming content site that’s currently passing away. The website had early success, raising $90k, growing from 0 to 500k page views/mo in 6 months and making $3.5/mo at its peak. However, in the last months, the business has struggled to make enough money to keep running; over-investment in a non-validated concept is one of the reasons for their failure.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Kyril Kotashev
Country:
Bulgaria
Industry:
Entertainment
Started in:
2018
Closed in:
2020
Funding Amount:
< $100K
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Market Fit
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.
Gymlisted was a website for finding the right private gym. Every day, Tom would go home from his day job and code up features for Gymlisted until midnight. Once launched, they started with their marketing efforts. But they soon realized there was pretty much no demand for what they were offering.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Tom Zaragoza
Country:
Canada
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
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.
Wes founded Pactero, a platform to simplify the process of managing income share agreements. He confused the initial launch hype with market validation, but it was vanity. The business made around $180 total after spending $55k.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Wes Wagner
Country:
United States
Industry:
Education
Started in:
2020
Closed in:
2021
Funding Amount:
$100K-$500K
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
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.
Matt created Tali, a timekeeping solution for lawyers powered by voice technology like Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant. Like many first start-ups, they encountered many mistakes while trying to build. He created Tali in the effort to help lawyers more effectively keep track of their time instead of using pen and paper. Ultimately, due to a lack of traction and a misfit product market they had to wind things down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Matthew Volm
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2019
Funding Amount:
$500K-$1M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
