Explore
Failure cases
Browse the current case set by type, domain, country, root cause, and collapse pattern.
144 of 144 cases
42Floors
42Floors set out to fix the misery of searching for office space online. Then it tried to also become an on-the-ground brokerage — and found it couldn't scale a national search platform and a hands-on brokerage at once. In 2015 it killed the brokerage, laid off half its staff, and refocused.
- Company
- 42Floors
- Industry
- Commercial Real Estate
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Estimated: $17,400,000
Air Berlin
Air Berlin grew into Germany's second-largest airline through debt-funded acquisitions, but never made money and was kept aloft by Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways. Etihad's hub-feed strategy distracted it from low-cost competition, and when Etihad stopped writing cheques in August 2017 the airline collapsed within weeks.
- Company
- Air Berlin
- Industry
- Airlines
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Alcatel-Lucent
The 2006 "merger of equals" between France's Alcatel and America's Lucent was meant to create a telecom-equipment champion. Instead it produced a decade of losses, culture clashes, and endless restructuring — before Nokia absorbed what was left in 2016.
- Company
- Alcatel-Lucent
- Industry
- Telecommunications Equipment
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Alitalia
Italy's flag carrier lost money in all but one year of its 75-year life. A high cost base, money-losing routes, and low-cost and high-speed-rail competition made it chronically unprofitable — but serial state bailouts kept it flying instead of forcing reform, until the money and the model both ran out in 2021.
- Company
- Alitalia
- Industry
- Airlines
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Amazon Fire Phone
Amazon's premium-priced smartphone launched into a mature two-OS market with no compelling advantage, and was written off within months.
- Company
- Amazon
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Ansett Australia
One of Australia's two great airlines flew an ageing, under-invested fleet — grounded over safety — while low-cost newcomers and Qantas undercut it and it lost about A$1.3 million a day. Its owner cut it loose after 9/11, and it collapsed in 2001.
- Company
- Ansett Australia
- Industry
- Airlines
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
AOL–Time Warner
The largest merger of its era united a dot-com darling with a media empire, then destroyed roughly $99 billion in value as cultures clashed and AOL's business collapsed — widely called the worst merger in corporate history.
- Company
- AOL Time Warner
- Industry
- Media & Internet
- Layer
- Governance
- Raised
- Not recorded
Apple AirPower
Apple announced a charge-anywhere wireless mat, hit engineering walls it could not clear, and cancelled it without ever shipping — its first such reversal.
- Company
- Apple
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Not recorded
Arcandor
Arcandor was a German retail giant — Karstadt department stores, the Quelle mail-order house, and a majority stake in Thomas Cook. Its core businesses were in long decline, and a sale-and-leaseback strategy stripped its store properties, leaving it paying rents it couldn't afford. It filed for insolvency in 2009.
- Company
- Arcandor
- Industry
- Retail
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Atrium
Atrium raised $75 million to reinvent the law firm — pairing an in-house firm with software that would make legal work dramatically more efficient. The two-company model never cohered, the promised efficiency gains didn't materialize, and after a last-ditch pivot it shut down in 2020.
- Company
- Atrium
- Industry
- Legal Technology
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Estimated: $75,500,000
Balanced Payments
Balanced built payments infrastructure for online marketplaces and processed hundreds of millions a year. Then its bigger, better-funded YC classmate Stripe moved into the same niche — and in a thin-margin, scale-driven business, Balanced lost its customers and handed them to the rival that beat it.
- Company
- Balanced
- Industry
- Payments
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Estimated: $3,400,000
Beepi
Beepi promised to fix used-car buying — purchase online, delivered to your door. It raised about $150 million at a $560M valuation, then burned roughly $7 million a month on inflated costs while fighting a market where most people won't buy a car sight-unseen. Two rescue deals collapsed, and it shut down in 2016.
- Company
- Beepi
- Industry
- Used-Car Marketplace
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Estimated: $150,000,000
BenQ Mobile
Siemens paid Taiwan's BenQ to take its loss-making mobile-phone business off its hands — and within a year BenQ Mobile had burned about €840 million, failed to gain ground on Nokia and Motorola, and collapsed into insolvency.
- Company
- BenQ
- Industry
- Mobile Phones
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER)
Germany's flagship new airport became a byword for megaproject dysfunction — a fire-safety system that failed its tests, chronic mismanagement, and repeated delays pushed its opening about nine years late and its cost to roughly triple the plan.
- Industry
- Aviation & Public Infrastructure
- Layer
- Governance
- Raised
- Not recorded
Better Place
The EV battery-swapping startup that raised around $850M and built the infrastructure before proving anyone would buy the cars, then went bankrupt.
- Company
- Better Place
- Industry
- Electric Vehicles
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Estimated: $850,000,000
Bird
The fastest startup ever to a billion-dollar valuation blanketed cities with shared e-scooters — but the scooters wore out and vanished faster than they earned, and Bird burned from a $2 billion company to a bankruptcy in five years.
- Company
- Bird
- Industry
- Micromobility
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Blab
Blab was a live-streaming app for group video chats — a "Periscope for groups" — that grew to 3.9 million users in a year. But only about one in ten came back daily, the format never sustained engagement, and against Twitter-backed Periscope it shut down in 2016.
- Company
- Blab
- Industry
- Live Streaming
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
BlackBerry
The smartphone pioneer that dismissed the touchscreen, watched its market share fall from dominance to near zero, and quit making phones.
- Company
- BlackBerry
- Industry
- Smartphones
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
BlackBerry PlayBook
BlackBerry rushed a tablet to challenge the iPad — and shipped it without native email, the very thing its brand was built on. Panned and unsold, the PlayBook forced a $485 million writedown and was gone within two years.
- Company
- BlackBerry
- Industry
- Tablets
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Not recorded
Blockbuster
The video-rental giant that passed on Netflix, leaned on late fees, and abandoned its own online strategy before streaming buried it.
- Company
- Blockbuster
- Industry
- Video Rental
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Boo.com
A UK online-fashion pioneer that raised about $135M, built a beautiful but unusable website, over-expanded across countries, and collapsed in six months of selling.
- Company
- Boo.com
- Industry
- E-commerce
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Estimated: $135,000,000
Borders
The bookstore chain that outsourced its website to Amazon and arrived late to e-books, then went bankrupt and liquidated every store.
- Company
- Borders
- Industry
- Bookstore Retail
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Braniff International
When US airlines were deregulated in 1978, Braniff bet on rapid growth — adding cities, routes, and about a billion dollars of aircraft — then debt, fuel costs, and 20% interest rates crushed the over-extended carrier, which shut down in 1982.
- Company
- Braniff International
- Industry
- Airlines
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Bump
Bump let you tap two phones together to swap contacts and photos, and it was a genuine hit — 125 million downloads. But it never found a way to make money, Apple's AirDrop made phone-tapping redundant, and after Google bought it for a modest ~$35 million, the app was shut down within months.
- Company
- Bump Technologies
- Industry
- Consumer Mobile Apps
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Estimated: $20,000,000
Circuit City
A leading US electronics retailer that fired its most experienced salespeople to cut costs, gutting the service that set it apart — and was bankrupt within two years.
- Company
- Circuit City
- Industry
- Retail
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Not recorded
CNN+
CNN's premium streaming service launched into an imminent merger and was shut down by its new owners about a month later.
- Company
- CNN
- Industry
- Streaming Media
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Not recorded
Commodore International
Commodore dominated home computing with the best-selling Commodore 64 and owned the technically brilliant Amiga — then squandered it all through boardroom turmoil, revolving-door management, and neglect of software and marketing, going bankrupt in 1994.
- Company
- Commodore
- Industry
- Home Computers
- Layer
- Governance
- Raised
- Not recorded
Crystal Pepsi
A clear cola that rode novelty to a fast start, then collapsed as the curiosity faded, the taste disappointed, and Coca-Cola sabotaged the category.
- Company
- PepsiCo
- Industry
- Beverages
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Daewoo Group
Daewoo grew from a small trading firm into one of South Korea's three largest chaebol, built on aggressive debt-funded global expansion. When the 1997 Asian financial crisis forced its rivals to retrench, Daewoo took on still more debt instead — and in 1999 it collapsed under roughly $50–57 billion of it, one of the largest corporate failures in history.
- Company
- Daewoo Group
- Industry
- Conglomerate
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
DaimlerChrysler
The largest cross-border industrial merger of its time joined Daimler-Benz and Chrysler as "equals" — but a German-American culture clash blocked integration, the synergies never came, and Daimler sold Chrysler nine years later for a fraction of the price.
- Company
- DaimlerChrysler
- Industry
- Automotive
- Layer
- Governance
- Raised
- Not recorded
Debenhams
Debenhams traded for 243 years — then a 2003 private-equity buyout loaded it with debt and sold off the freeholds under its own stores, leaving it paying rent it once owned and starved of the money to modernize. As shopping moved online, the hollowed-out department store had nothing left to fight with, and it was liquidated in 2021.
- Company
- Debenhams
- Industry
- Retail
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Denver Airport Automated Baggage System
Denver's new airport bet on the world's largest automated baggage system — but it mangled and misrouted bags, delayed the airport's opening by about 16 months, and was quietly abandoned a decade later.
- Industry
- Aviation & Systems Engineering
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Not recorded
Dick Smith Electronics
Woolworths sold the Australian electronics chain Dick Smith to a private-equity firm in 2012 for about A$20 million — less than its inventory was worth. Barely a year later it was floated on the stock market at around A$520 million. The dressed-up business couldn't fund its own stock, and it collapsed within weeks in early 2016.
- Company
- Dick Smith Electronics
- Industry
- Retail
- Layer
- Governance
- Raised
- Not recorded
Digg
The web's leading social-news site until a 2010 redesign stripped out what users loved, drove them to Reddit, and left Digg to sell for about $500,000.
- Company
- Digg
- Industry
- Social Media
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Not recorded
Doppler Labs
Doppler Labs raised over $50 million to build the Here One "smart earbuds" — noise-cancelling buds that let you reshape the sounds around you. But the battery lasted only a couple of hours, sales were weak, and as investors turned against hardware it couldn't raise more. It shut down in 2017.
- Company
- Doppler Labs
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Estimated: $50,000,000
Essential
Backed by a star founder and hundreds of millions in funding, Essential launched a single well-hyped Android phone into a market owned by Apple and Samsung. Poor sales, a cancelled successor, and no path to ship its next device shut the company down after one product.
- Company
- Essential Products
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Estimated: $330,000,000
eToys.com
The most famous online toy store of the dot-com boom soared to a $76 first-day stock price, then burned through cash building warehouses for a business it needed only weeks a year — and, out-competed and out of money, went bankrupt in 2001.
- Company
- eToys
- Industry
- E-commerce
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Exec
Exec promised to instantly run any errand for $25 an hour. But outside founders and engineers, few people could figure out what to do with a "do anything" service. It pivoted to cleaning, got out-funded by rivals like Homejoy and Handybook, and was sold for under $10 million.
- Company
- Exec
- Industry
- On-Demand Services
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Estimated: $3,300,000
Fab.com
A design flash-sale site grew to 10 million members faster than Facebook and raised over $300 million at a $1 billion valuation — then burned $14 million a month, pivoted again and again, and sold for about $15 million.
- Company
- Fab
- Industry
- E-commerce
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Facebook Home
Facebook tried to put itself at the center of the phone with a home-screen takeover and a dedicated handset, the HTC First. Within weeks the phone was cut from $99 to 99 cents, and Home was quietly abandoned.
- Company
- Industry
- Mobile Software
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Flip Video
The Flip was a dead-simple pocket camcorder and the best-selling one on the market. Cisco bought its maker for $590 million in 2009 — then abruptly killed it two years later. Whether smartphones doomed it or Cisco sacrificed a still-profitable business to exit consumer is genuinely disputed.
- Company
- Pure Digital
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Not recorded
Fokker
A pioneering Dutch aircraft maker — once the world's largest — Fokker could not out-invest Boeing and Airbus in a scale-driven industry, let its new-jet development costs spiral, and collapsed in 1996 when its owner, Daimler-Benz Aerospace, cut it loose.
- Company
- Fokker
- Industry
- Aircraft Manufacturing
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Not recorded
Ford Edsel
Ford built a whole new car division on secretive hype, then launched the Edsel into a recession with unloved styling and expectations it couldn't meet — losing an estimated $250-350 million in about two years.
- Company
- Ford
- Industry
- Automotive
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Friendster
The first big social network, which turned down a $30M Google offer, then let slow pages and crashes drive its users to MySpace and Facebook.
- Company
- Friendster
- Industry
- Social Media
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Not recorded
Gilt Groupe
Gilt Groupe pioneered the flash sale — time-limited online sales of discounted luxury goods — and hit a $1 billion valuation. But slim margins, waning novelty, and the difficulty of scaling a profitable e-commerce operation caught up with it, and it sold to Hudson's Bay for $250 million, below what it had raised.
- Company
- Gilt Groupe
- Industry
- Flash-Sale Ecommerce
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Estimated: $270,000,000
Google Glass
The face-worn computer whose always-on camera provoked a privacy backlash the consumer product never overcame.
- Company
- Industry
- Wearables
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Google Inbox
Inbox by Gmail was a well-liked reinvention of email from the Gmail team, built around bundles, snooze, and reminders. Google folded its best ideas into Gmail and shut Inbox down after four years — another entry in Google's long list of retired products.
- Company
- Industry
- Communication Software
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Google Reader
A beloved RSS reader with a devoted following that Google shut down anyway, judging it too niche and hard to justify against bigger bets.
- Company
- Industry
- Software
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Google Stadia
Google's cloud-gaming platform launched with too few games, never found an audience, and was shut down three years later.
- Company
- Industry
- Cloud Gaming
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Google Wave
Google's ambitious attempt to merge email, instant messaging, and collaborative documents into real-time "waves" dazzled at its unveiling but confused nearly everyone who tried it. Google halted development barely a year later, citing weak adoption.
- Company
- Industry
- Communication Software
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Google+
Google's answer to Facebook, forced across its products yet barely used, was wound down after a data-exposure bug hastened the decision.
- Company
- Industry
- Social Media
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
GoPro Karma
GoPro's first drone launched to fanfare, then had to be recalled within weeks when units lost power and fell from the sky — and GoPro left the drone business a year later.
- Company
- GoPro
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Not recorded
Groupon
Groupon pioneered the "daily deal" and IPO'd in 2011 at a $13 billion valuation. Months later it had to restate its results after its auditor found a "material weakness" in its financial controls, and the daily-deal model itself faded. Its stock lost more than 80% of its value within a year.
- Company
- Groupon
- Industry
- Local Commerce
- Layer
- Governance
- Raised
- Not recorded
Grundig
A post-war German champion that became Europe's biggest radio maker, Grundig was ground down over decades by lower-cost Japanese and Asian manufacturers it could not match on price — and, after years of losses, went bankrupt in 2003.
- Company
- Grundig
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Hanjin Shipping
South Korea's largest container line ordered a wave of ships just before the 2008 crash, then a years-long shipping glut and its own debt sank it — and its 2016 collapse stranded ships and billions of dollars of cargo at sea, snarling global trade.
- Company
- Hanjin
- Industry
- Container Shipping
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Not recorded
HD DVD
Toshiba's high-definition disc format lost a format war to Sony's Blu-ray when studios and retailers defected, and was abandoned within weeks.
- Company
- Toshiba
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Not recorded
Hipmunk
Hipmunk was a beloved travel-search site that sorted flights by "agony." But it couldn't win as an independent business against Google Flights, Kayak, and Expedia in a consolidating market. It sold to Concur (SAP) in 2016, was quietly neglected, and shut down in 2020.
- Company
- Hipmunk
- Industry
- Travel Search
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Estimated: $55,000,000
Homejoy
An on-demand home-cleaning startup used deep discounts to sign up customers who didn't come back, took a cut that left too little for good cleaners, and — facing lawsuits over whether those cleaners were employees — shut down in 2015.
- Company
- Homejoy
- Industry
- On-demand Services
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
HP TouchPad
HP's well-reviewed webOS tablet launched into the iPad's shadow with no app ecosystem, sold dismally, and was killed 49 days later.
- Company
- HP
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Not recorded
Iridium (original)
A $5 billion constellation of 66 satellites promised a phone that worked anywhere on Earth — but cheap cellular spread during its long build, and the original venture went bankrupt nine months after launch.
- Company
- Motorola
- Industry
- Satellite Communications
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
J.C. Penney (Ron Johnson era)
A celebrated Apple retail executive tried to remake J.C. Penney by scrapping coupons and sales for everyday low prices — and drove away the bargain-hunting customers it depended on, with sales down about 25% in a year.
- Company
- J.C. Penney
- Industry
- Retail
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Jawbone
The audio-and-wearables maker that raised over $900M and was once valued near $3B, then liquidated as product problems and Fitbit and Apple overtook it.
- Company
- Jawbone
- Industry
- Consumer Hardware
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Estimated: $900,000,000
Jet Airways
Jet Airways grew into one of India's largest full-service airlines — then stopped flying in April 2019 under about $1.2 billion of debt. A high-cost model, low-cost competition, rising fuel, and a weak rupee bled it for years; when lenders wouldn't extend more cash, it grounded its whole fleet within weeks.
- Company
- Jet Airways
- Industry
- Airlines
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Juicero
The $700 Wi-Fi juice press, backed by $120M in venture capital, that became a punchline when reporters found you could squeeze its packs by hand.
- Company
- Juicero
- Industry
- Consumer Hardware
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Estimated: $120,000,000
Kiko
One of Y Combinator's very first startups, Kiko was an early Ajax web calendar. It is remembered as the app "Google Calendar killed" — but its own founders later admitted a standalone calendar with no email and no revenue model was doomed regardless. They auctioned it on eBay and went on to build Twitch.
- Company
- Kiko
- Industry
- Productivity Software
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Kingfisher Airlines
Kingfisher Airlines launched in 2005 as India's glamorous premium carrier and never made a profit. A disastrous move into low-cost flying via Air Deccan, debt-funded expansion, high fuel costs, and fierce competition drained it for years — until unpaid staff, grounded planes, and a suspended license ended it in 2012.
- Company
- Kingfisher Airlines
- Industry
- Airlines
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Kmart
Kmart helped invent American discount retailing — then spent the 1990s being squeezed between Walmart's lower prices below and Target's more upscale appeal above, without ever carving out a position of its own. Failing execution and a superior rival left it filing for what was then the largest retail bankruptcy in US history in January 2002.
- Company
- Kmart
- Industry
- Retail
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Knight Capital
A botched software deployment left obsolete code running on a trading server, and Knight Capital's automated system fired millions of erroneous orders for about 45 minutes — a ~$440 million loss, roughly the whole firm's value, that ended its independence.
- Company
- Knight Capital
- Industry
- Trading & Market-Making
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Not recorded
Kodak
The company that invented the digital camera but delayed embracing it to protect its film business, and filed for bankruptcy as digital took over.
- Company
- Kodak
- Industry
- Photography
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Kozmo.com
A dot-com darling promised free one-hour delivery of videos, snacks, and small goods with no minimum order — and burned about $280 million learning that delivering low-value items for free can never turn a profit, shutting down abruptly in 2001.
- Company
- Kozmo
- Industry
- On-demand Delivery
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Long-Term Capital Management
A hedge fund run by Nobel laureates earned spectacular returns on enormous leverage — until the 1998 Russian default broke its models, cost it about $4.6 billion, and forced a Federal Reserve-organized bank rescue.
- Company
- Long-Term Capital Management
- Industry
- Hedge Funds
- Layer
- Governance
- Raised
- Not recorded
Loopt
Loopt was a pioneer of location-based social networking — years before Foursquare. But it never won the space it helped invent, and as rivals pulled ahead its prospects faded. In 2012 it sold to a prepaid-card company, Green Dot, for its mobile team and patents, not its product.
- Company
- Loopt
- Industry
- Location-Based Social
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Estimated: $17,000,000
Lytro
Lytro's "light-field" camera captured a whole field of light, letting you refocus a photo after taking it — a genuine technical marvel. But the cameras never found a broad market, a pivot to VR didn't save it, and after raising over $200 million, Lytro sold its patents to Google for about $40 million and shut down.
- Company
- Lytro
- Industry
- Cameras
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Estimated: $200,000,000
Magic Leap
An augmented-reality startup that raised more than $2.6 billion on secrecy and hype, shipped a headset few wanted, and abandoned its consumer dream for enterprise.
- Company
- Magic Leap
- Industry
- Augmented Reality
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Estimated: $2,600,000,000
Marconi (GEC)
Britain's GEC sold its rock-solid defense business and bet the proceeds on a debt-fueled spree of overpriced US telecom acquisitions at the peak of the boom — then the telecom market collapsed, and the 115-year-old company was destroyed, its shareholders left with 0.5%.
- Company
- Marconi
- Industry
- Telecommunications Equipment
- Layer
- Governance
- Raised
- Not recorded
McDonald's Arch Deluxe
McDonald's spent a reported $300 million to sell adults a "grown-up" burger — and learned that customers came to McDonald's for exactly what it already was, not an upscale sandwich priced above the Big Mac.
- Company
- McDonald's
- Industry
- Fast Food
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
MG Rover
Sold by BMW for a token £10, MG Rover tried to survive as Britain's last mass-market carmaker — stripped of its profitable brands, undercapitalized, and never profitable. A Chinese rescue fell through, and it collapsed in 2005 with the loss of about 6,000 Longbridge jobs.
- Company
- MG Rover Group
- Industry
- Automotive
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Not recorded
Microsoft Band
Microsoft's $199 fitness wearable launched to a first-day sellout and a well-reviewed sequel, but modest sales against Fitbit and the Apple Watch led Microsoft to exit wearables after two years, with no Band 3.
- Company
- Microsoft
- Industry
- Wearables
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Not recorded
Microsoft Kin
After buying the Sidekick maker and spending about a billion dollars, Microsoft launched the Kin "social phones" for teens — then killed them 48 days later, having reportedly sold fewer than 10,000 units.
- Company
- Microsoft
- Industry
- Mobile Phones
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Microsoft Zune
Microsoft's music player arrived years after the iPod had won, then was overtaken by the smartphone before it could differentiate.
- Company
- Microsoft
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Not recorded
Mixer
Microsoft's game-streaming service bet that signing Twitch's biggest stars to exclusive deals would let it leapfrog the market leaders. The audiences didn't follow, and Microsoft shut Mixer down less than a year later, pushing users to Facebook Gaming.
- Company
- Microsoft
- Industry
- Game Streaming
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Monarch Airlines
Monarch spent fifty years flying British holidaymakers to the sun, then reinvented itself as a scheduled low-cost airline — straight into the teeth of Ryanair and easyJet. Terrorism gutted its North African and Mediterranean routes, a weak post-Brexit pound raised its costs, and in October 2017 it became the largest UK airline ever to collapse.
- Company
- Monarch Airlines
- Industry
- Airlines
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Not recorded
Mothercare
Mothercare was the British high street's default shop for prams, cots, and baby clothes for half a century. Then supermarkets and Amazon sold the same things cheaper and easier, and Mothercare — outdated and undifferentiated — gave parents little reason to make the trip. Its UK stores went into administration in 2019, though the brand lives on through licensing.
- Company
- Mothercare
- Industry
- Retail
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
MoviePass
The $9.95-a-month unlimited movie subscription that grew explosively while losing money on nearly every ticket, and collapsed within two years.
- Company
- MoviePass
- Industry
- Movie Subscription
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Munchery
Munchery cooked its own fresh meals and delivered them, raising $125 million at a $300M valuation. But food delivery's economics were punishing — it over-expanded, burned cash, made far too much food, and thrashed through strategies. It abruptly shut down in 2019, leaving small vendors unpaid.
- Company
- Munchery
- Industry
- Food Delivery
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Estimated: $125,000,000
MySpace
The world's biggest social network let its product stagnate under News Corp while chasing ad revenue — and a cleaner, faster Facebook took everything, turning a $580 million purchase into a $35 million sale.
- Company
- MySpace
- Industry
- Social Media
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Not recorded
Napster (original)
The service that made free music feel infinite, grew to tens of millions of users, and was shut down within two years when courts found its unlicensed file-sharing to be copyright infringement.
- Company
- Napster
- Industry
- Music & File Sharing
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Not recorded
Netscape
Netscape Navigator took the early web by storm, holding about 90% of the browser market and staging a legendary 1995 IPO. Then Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer free with Windows — and there was no business left in selling a browser.
- Company
- Netscape Communications
- Industry
- Web Browsers
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Not recorded
New Coke
Coca-Cola replaced its 99-year-old formula after winning taste tests, misjudged customers' attachment to the original, and reversed course in 79 days.
- Company
- Coca-Cola
- Industry
- Beverages
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Nintendo Wii U
A capable console undone by a confusing name and marketing that left buyers thinking it was a Wii accessory — Nintendo's worst-selling home console.
- Company
- Nintendo
- Industry
- Video Game Consoles
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Nokia (mobile phones)
The world's largest phone maker clung to its aging software, missed the smartphone shift, and sold its handset business to Microsoft.
- Company
- Nokia
- Industry
- Mobile Phones
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Nortel
Once worth about C$350 billion — more than a third of the entire Toronto Stock Exchange — Nortel abandoned innovation for a debt-fuelled acquisition spree, was gutted by the telecom bust, and was out-competed by cheaper rivals. It filed for bankruptcy in 2009.
- Company
- Nortel Networks
- Industry
- Telecommunications Equipment
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Northern Rock
A fast-growing UK mortgage lender funded itself not with deposits but by borrowing short-term in wholesale money markets — and when those markets froze in 2007, it triggered the first run on a British bank in 150 years and was nationalized.
- Company
- Northern Rock
- Industry
- Banking & Mortgages
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Not recorded
Olympia & York
Olympia & York was one of the world's largest property developers, run by Canada's Reichmann family. It bet the company on Canary Wharf — a vast speculative office complex in London's Docklands, built on enormous debt before the tenants or the promised transit link arrived. When the early-1990s property market crashed, the empty towers helped bring the whole empire down.
- Company
- Olympia & York
- Industry
- Real Estate
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
OMGPOP
OMGPOP's drawing game Draw Something was a viral sensation, and Zynga bought the studio for about $200 million at the very peak — days before the game began shedding millions of players. Barely a year later, Zynga shut OMGPOP down.
- Company
- OMGPOP
- Industry
- Mobile Games
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
One.Tel
One.Tel grew explosively into one of Australia's biggest companies, backed by the Murdoch and Packer empires — then collapsed in 2001. Ruinous cash burn and weak financial visibility meant it was insolvent months before anyone acted; when its backers pulled a rescue, it fell apart within days.
- Company
- One.Tel
- Industry
- Telecommunications
- Layer
- Governance
- Raised
- Not recorded
OnLive
OnLive streamed console-quality games from remote data centers years before home internet could deliver them lag-free. Real-world latency and ruinous infrastructure costs collapsed the company in 2012; it was fire-sold for $4.8M after a valuation near $1.8B.
- Company
- OnLive
- Industry
- Cloud Gaming
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Not recorded
Osborne Computer Corporation
Osborne made the first commercially successful portable computer and grew explosively — then, the story goes, killed itself by showing off future models before the current one sold, though historians argue competition and finances mattered as much.
- Company
- Osborne Computer
- Industry
- Personal Computers
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Not recorded
Ouya
A record-breaking Kickstarter promised a cheap, open Android console to "open the last closed platform" — the TV. But the hardware was weak, the games were weaker, and outside its backers almost no one bought it, so Ouya was sold for parts within two years.
- Company
- Ouya
- Industry
- Video Game Consoles
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Pan Am
Pan American World Airways was the iconic face of US international flying — and had almost no domestic network. When deregulation opened its skies to domestic rivals in 1978, its model was exposed; a costly acquisition meant to fix that only loaded on debt, it sold its crown jewels to survive, and after the Lockerbie bombing and years of losses it shut down in December 1991.
- Company
- Pan American World Airways
- Industry
- Airlines
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Parse
Parse was a backend-as-a-service that let mobile developers skip building their own servers; Facebook bought it in 2013 and roughly 600,000 apps came to depend on it. Then Facebook decided the developer-platform business wasn't core, and shut Parse down — a landmark lesson in the risk of building on someone else's platform.
- Company
- Parse
- Industry
- Developer Tools
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Pebble
The record-breaking crowdfunded smartwatch that could not survive the platform owners entering its market.
- Company
- Pebble
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Estimated: $30,603,775
Pets.com
The sock-puppet dot-com that sold pet supplies below cost, outspent its revenue many times over on marketing, and collapsed nine months after its IPO.
- Company
- Pets.com
- Industry
- E-commerce
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Philips CD-i
Philips' CD-i tried to be a multimedia player, an educational device, and a game console all at once — and, expensive and unfocused with an infamously weak game library, it never found a market, reportedly costing Philips close to $1 billion.
- Company
- Philips
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
PlayStation Vita
Sony's technically impressive handheld launched into the rise of smartphone gaming, saddled with expensive proprietary memory cards and starved of software as Sony pivoted resources to the PlayStation 4. It sold about 16 million units and was quietly retired.
- Company
- Sony
- Industry
- Video Games
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Not recorded
Powa Technologies
One of Britain's most-hyped startups raised around $175 million and claimed a $2.7 billion valuation — but its flagship product had almost no real customers, and Powa burned through the money and collapsed into administration.
- Company
- Powa Technologies
- Industry
- Fintech & Mobile Commerce
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Estimated: $175,000,000
Prim
Prim offered door-to-door laundry — wash, fold, and delivery for $25 a bag. But sending a person to drive to your home and back for one or two bags burned more money than the bag was worth, and reliable laundromat supply proved impossible. It shut down six months after launch.
- Company
- Prim
- Industry
- On-Demand Laundry
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Quaker Oats & Snapple
Fresh off its triumph with Gatorade, Quaker Oats paid $1.7 billion for Snapple — then misread the quirky brand and its small-store distributors, and sold it three years later for $300 million, a roughly $1.4 billion loss.
- Company
- Quaker Oats
- Industry
- Beverages
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Quibi
The $1.75-billion short-form streaming bet that launched into a pandemic and shut down within six months.
- Company
- Quibi
- Industry
- Streaming Media
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Estimated: $1,750,000,000
Quirky
Quirky crowdsourced inventions — the public submitted ideas, the community voted, and Quirky manufactured and sold the winners, sharing royalties. But making physical products is capital-intensive and low-margin, it launched far too many, and real hits were rare. It went bankrupt after raising about $185 million.
- Company
- Quirky
- Industry
- Consumer Products
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Estimated: $185,000,000
RadioShack
A onetime electronics-retail institution that lost its identity, missed the shift to e-commerce and smartphones, and drowned in debt and too many stores.
- Company
- RadioShack
- Industry
- Retail
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
RBS and the ABN AMRO Acquisition
At the top of the market in 2007, an RBS-led consortium paid about €71 billion for ABN AMRO — the largest banking takeover ever — funded largely by debt. Within a year the deal had helped push Royal Bank of Scotland into a £24bn loss and a UK government rescue.
- Company
- Royal Bank of Scotland
- Industry
- Banking
- Layer
- Governance
- Raised
- Not recorded
Rdio
Rdio was a beautifully designed music-streaming service that critics loved — but it was slow to launch a free tier, out-marketed by Spotify, and bleeding about $2 million a month against brutal streaming economics. It filed for bankruptcy in 2015; Pandora bought its technology, not its business.
- Company
- Rdio
- Industry
- Music Streaming
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Estimated: $125,000,000
Rethink Robotics
Founded by iRobot's Rodney Brooks, Rethink pioneered friendly "collaborative robots" — Baxter and Sawyer — meant to work safely beside people. But the robots weren't precise or robust enough for real factories, nimbler rivals moved faster, and after raising nearly $150 million it closed in 2018.
- Company
- Rethink Robotics
- Industry
- Robotics
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Estimated: $150,000,000
Saab Automobile
A beloved, quirky Swedish carmaker was absorbed into General Motors, lost the distinctive identity that was its only edge, never reached the scale to be profitable, and went bankrupt in 2011 when a last-minute rescue was blocked.
- Company
- Saab
- Industry
- Automotive
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Schlecker
Schlecker was Germany's biggest drugstore chain — around 14,000 small, cramped shops on seemingly every corner. As rivals dm and Rossmann won shoppers with bigger, brighter, better-run stores, Schlecker kept its dated format and bled money for years, until it filed for insolvency in 2012, found no buyer, and closed everything.
- Company
- Schlecker
- Industry
- Retail
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Sears (Lampert era)
Once America's dominant retailer, Sears was merged with Kmart and run as a turnaround that starved its stores of investment and leaned on financial engineering and asset sales — and after years of decline it went bankrupt in 2018.
- Company
- Sears
- Industry
- Retail
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Secret
Secret let people post anonymous confessions and rumors, and it briefly caught fire — raising about $35 million at a $100 million valuation. But anonymity bred cyberbullying the company was slow to control, a panicked redesign turned it into a Yik Yak clone, and it shut down about 16 months after launch.
- Company
- Secret
- Industry
- Anonymous Social
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Estimated: $35,000,000
Seeso
Seeso was NBCUniversal's ad-free, comedy-only streaming service — SNL and Monty Python alongside originals — for $3.99 a month. But a single-genre subscription was too narrow when Netflix and a growing wave of broad services offered plenty of comedy too. It shut down about 18 months after launch.
- Company
- Seeso
- Industry
- Streaming Media
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Sega Dreamcast
A pioneering console — the first with built-in online play — overwhelmed by the PlayStation 2 and Sega's own damaged reputation, ending Sega's hardware business.
- Company
- Sega
- Industry
- Video Game Consoles
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Not recorded
Segway PT
The self-balancing personal transporter hyped as world-changing that sold a tiny fraction of its projections and never found a mass use case.
- Company
- Segway
- Industry
- Personal Transportation
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Shyp
Shyp let you photograph an item and, for a flat $5, have a courier pick it up, package it, and ship it. The flat fee could never cover the variable cost of shipping anything from a bike to a laptop — and a growth-at-all-costs expansion burned the runway before the model could be fixed.
- Company
- Shyp
- Industry
- Logistics
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Estimated: $62,000,000
Sidecar
Sidecar invented much of what modern ridesharing takes for granted — everyday drivers, driver destinations, shared rides, upfront pricing. But it raised about $35 million against Uber's $6.6 billion and Lyft's $1.26 billion, and in a winner-take-most market that gap was fatal. It shut down at the end of 2015.
- Company
- Sidecar
- Industry
- Ridesharing
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Estimated: $35,000,000
Sinclair C5
Clive Sinclair's battery-electric tricycle launched in 1985 to instant ridicule — too low and exposed to feel safe, too short-ranged to be useful, and wanted by almost no one — and sank his vehicle company within ten months.
- Company
- Sinclair
- Industry
- Electric Vehicles
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Sony Betamax
The technically respected videotape format that lost the home-video war to VHS — because Sony kept it closed and short-recording while JVC licensed VHS widely and let it record a whole movie.
- Company
- Sony
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
SpoonRocket
SpoonRocket cooked its own cheap meals and delivered them in about ten minutes. It reached positive unit margins — but the model was capital-hungry, and when the venture-funding climate froze in early 2016, it couldn't raise the money to keep scaling and shut down.
- Company
- SpoonRocket
- Industry
- Food Delivery
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Estimated: $13,500,000
Steam Machines
Valve's Steam Machines were living-room gaming PCs running its own Linux-based SteamOS. Caught between a console and a PC — with fewer games, worse performance, and a confusing range of prices — they had no clear customer. Fewer than half a million sold, partners bailed, and Valve quietly shelved the whole idea.
- Company
- Valve
- Industry
- Video Games
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Sun Microsystems
A Silicon Valley icon worth over $200 billion at the dot-com peak, Sun built the servers that ran the early web. Then cheap commodity Linux servers undercut its proprietary hardware — a shift its own engineers had foreseen — and after a decade of failed turnarounds Oracle bought it for a fraction of its former worth.
- Company
- Sun Microsystems
- Industry
- Enterprise Computing
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Not recorded
Swissair
Switzerland's flag carrier was so solid it was called "the Flying Bank" — until a strategy of buying stakes in failing airlines buried it in debt, and the post-9/11 downturn grounded its fleet when it ran out of cash in 2001.
- Company
- Swissair
- Industry
- Airlines
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Target Canada
Target rushed more than 100 stores across Canada in a single year on an untested inventory system — and empty shelves, high prices, and a supply-chain meltdown burned about $2 billion and forced a full retreat within two years.
- Company
- Target
- Industry
- Retail
- Layer
- Execution
- Raised
- Not recorded
Tata Nano
Marketed as "the world's cheapest car," Tata's ~$2,000 Nano was meant to put India's scooter families in a safe car — but the "cheapest" label branded it a poor man's car, and buyers who could afford status stayed away.
- Company
- Tata Motors
- Industry
- Automotive
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Tesco Fresh & Easy
Britain's biggest grocer spent years researching America, then opened a chain of small self-checkout convenience stores that misread how Americans shop — and after well over £1 billion in losses, Tesco abandoned the US in 2013.
- Company
- Tesco
- Industry
- Grocery Retail
- Layer
- Thesis
- Raised
- Not recorded
Thomas Cook
The world's oldest holiday firm, 178 years old, was strangled by debt built from ill-fated deals — above all its 2007 merger with MyTravel. Unable to invest as travel moved online and hit by external shocks, it collapsed in 2019, stranding some 600,000 travellers.
- Company
- Thomas Cook Group
- Industry
- Travel & Tourism
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Toys "R" Us
An iconic toy retailer loaded with billions in buyout debt that starved its response to Amazon and big-box rivals, ending in bankruptcy and the loss of its US stores.
- Company
- Toys "R" Us
- Industry
- Retail
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Turntable.fm
Turntable.fm was a 2011 viral hit where people took turns DJ-ing in virtual rooms. But paying to license the music was ruinously expensive, and the active, attention-heavy format never became a daily habit. It shut down in 2013.
- Company
- Turntable.fm
- Industry
- Social Music
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Tutorspree
The YC-backed "Airbnb for tutoring" grew almost entirely through free Google search. When a 2013 Google algorithm update cut its traffic by roughly 80% overnight, no other channel could replace the lost customers — and single-channel dependency ended the company.
- Company
- Tutorspree
- Industry
- Online Tutoring
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Estimated: $1,800,000
Verizon go90
Verizon spent over a billion dollars building go90, a free mobile-video service meant to win millennials from YouTube and Netflix — but the audience never came, and after three years it folded the service and took a ~$900 million charge.
- Company
- Verizon
- Industry
- Streaming Video
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Vine
The six-second video app that defined a genre, then was shut down by a struggling Twitter that never gave its creators a way to earn.
- Company
- Industry
- Social Media
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Walmart Germany
Walmart brought its US superstore playbook to Germany — and found that low prices it couldn't beat Aldi on, American service its customers disliked, and rigid labor rules left no room for its model. It exited in 2006 at a ~$1 billion loss.
- Company
- Walmart
- Industry
- Retail
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Webvan
The dot-com grocery-delivery startup that spent a billion dollars building warehouses before proving anyone wanted the service, and went bankrupt in 2001.
- Company
- Webvan
- Industry
- Online Grocery
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Estimated: $800,000,000
Windows Phone
Microsoft's mobile OS arrived after iOS and Android had won, and never escaped the app gap that starved it of both developers and users.
- Company
- Microsoft
- Industry
- Mobile Operating Systems
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
WOW air
WOW air turned Iceland into a cut-price bridge across the Atlantic, growing from nothing to millions of passengers in a few years on the promise of dirt-cheap fares via Reykjavík. Then it over-reached — stretching its ultra-low-cost model into long-haul routes it didn't fit — and with fuel rising and rescues falling through, it collapsed overnight in March 2019.
- Company
- WOW air
- Industry
- Airlines
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Yahoo
Yahoo was one of the internet's original giants — worth about $125 billion at the dot-com peak. It turned down Microsoft's ~$44.6 billion takeover in 2008, missed the shift to mobile and social, and after a failed turnaround under Marissa Mayer agreed in 2016 to sell its core business to Verizon for about $4.83 billion — a fraction of what it had walked away from.
- Company
- Yahoo
- Industry
- Internet
- Layer
- Strategy
- Raised
- Not recorded
Zynga
Zynga was the king of Facebook gaming — FarmVille, Words With Friends — and IPO'd in December 2011. Then Facebook changed the rules that fed its viral growth, players moved to mobile, and a business built almost entirely on one platform it didn't control lost about three-quarters of its value within a year.
- Company
- Zynga
- Industry
- Social Gaming
- Layer
- Environment
- Raised
- Not recorded
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