Remembering the startups we lost in 2023 | TechCrunch

回顧我們在 2023 年失去的初創企業 | TechCrunch

內容

Not every startup collapse is an FTX or Theranos. They don’t all burn so brightly and explode so spectacularly. More often than not, there won’t be some high-profile court case and prison time. Amanda Seyfried isn’t going to play you in the made for Hulu movie.

並非每一家新創公司的倒閉都像 FTX 或 Theranos 那樣引人注目。它們並非都如此燃燒明亮,爆炸如此壯觀。往往情況並非如此,不會有高調的法庭案件和坐牢的情況。Amanda Seyfried 不會在 Hulu 的電影中飾演你。

The story of most startup failures is far less exciting. The timing isn’t right, funding dries up, runways run out. Of late, a lot of macroeconomic factors have come into play, as well. These past few years have been especially brutal for startup land. According to a recent PitchBook survey, “approximately 3,200 private venture-backed U.S. companies have gone out of business this year.”

大多數初創公司失敗的故事並不那麼令人振奮。時機不對,資金枯竭,資金用盡。最近,許多宏觀經濟因素也開始發揮作用。過去幾年對初創公司來說尤其艱難。根據最近的PitchBook調查,「約有3200家美國私人風險投資支持的公司今年倒閉。」

Combined, those companies raised north of $27 billion. Even more starkly, it’s a figure that doesn’t include companies that failed after going public or were able to find a buyer. That, after all, would really be stretching the definition of a “startup.”

這些公司總共籌集了超過270億美元。更明顯的是,這個數字還不包括在上市後失敗或找到買家的公司。畢竟,這樣的公司真的很難被稱為「新創企業」。

It’s worth noting, too, that “failure” is subjective. Does bankruptcy qualify? It’s certainly not a good sign with regard to your company’s health, but plenty of companies have managed to bounce back to some degree. This particular question has been cause for plenty of discussion around the old TechCrunch virtual watercooler.

值得一提的是,“失敗”是主觀的。破產算是失敗嗎?這對於公司的健康狀況肯定不是一個好兆頭,但許多公司都設法在某種程度上東山再起。這個特定問題一直是舊的TechCrunch虛擬茶水間討論的話題。

For the sake of a piece titled “The Startups We Lost,” I’ve opted to limit the list to those startups that — to the best of our knowledge — have hit the point of no return. Pushing up daisies. Pining for the fjords.

為了一篇名為“我們失去的新創公司”的文章,我選擇將清單限制在那些——據我們所知——已經走到了無法回頭的地步的新創公司。已經完蛋了。渴望著峽灣。

As the final days fall off the calendar, let’s take a moment to remember some of the startups that didn’t make it.

當最後的日子從日曆上消失時,讓我們花一點時間來紀念一些沒有成功的新創公司。

Braid

編織

Founded 2019
$10 million raised

成立於2019年 $1000萬籌集

Image Credits: Braid

圖片來源: Braid

In October, Braid, a four-year-old startup that aimed to make shared wallets more mainstream among consumers, announced it had shut down. Founded in January 2019 by Amanda Peyton and Todd Berman (who left in 2020), San Francisco-based Braid set out to offer friends and family an FDIC-insured, multiuser account that was designed to make it easy “to pool, manage and spend money together.” Braid raised a total of $10 million in funding “over multiple rounds” from Index Ventures, Accel and others.

去年十月,Braid,一家成立四年的初創公司,旨在使共享錢包在消費者中更普及,宣布已經關閉。Braid成立於2019年1月,由阿曼達·佩頓和托德·伯曼(後於2020年離開)創立,總部位於舊金山的Braid致力於為朋友和家人提供一個受聯邦存款保險公司保障的多用戶帳戶,旨在輕鬆“共同籌集、管理和花費錢”。Braid從Index Ventures、Accel和其他投資者“多輪次”籌集了總共1000萬美元的資金。

What was refreshing about this closure was Peyton’s candor about what led to Braid’s demise. In a blog post, Peyton said that Braid had closed its doors in September, and outlined her experiences — and mistakes — in building the company, ultimately realizing that it wasn’t going to be a viable business venture. An estimated 91% of startups fail. If more founders shared their experience like Peyton did so others could learn from them, maybe that number would go down.

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CloudNordic

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Founded 2007

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a screenshot of CloudNordic's status page that reads, "Unfortunately, it has proved impossible to recreate more data, and the majority of our customers have thus lost all data with us."

Image Credits: TechCrunch (screenshot)

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CloudNordic might not be a household name, but a destructive ransomware attack on its systems propelled the company into the limelight — and its ultimate demise. The Danish cloud host provider shut down this year after close to two decades of operation following a ransomware attack that wiped out the company’s systems and destroyed all of its customers’ data. The company said it didn’t have the money to pay the hackers, and wouldn’t even if it did. With no options left, the company closed its doors.

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Convoy

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Founded 2015
More than $1 billion raised

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Convoy trucking

Image Credits: Convoy

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The digital freight broker abruptly closed in October 2023, just eight months after the Seattle-based company raised $260 million in fresh funding that pushed its valuation to $3.8 billion. Convoy, founded by former Amazon and Google exec CEO Dan Lewis and CTO Grant Goodale, will live on — sort of.

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Supply chain logistics platform Flexport acquired the assets of the shuttered digital freight network with plans to restore Convoy’s trucking logistics services for customers. Flexport didn’t acquire the business or any of its liabilities, but its CEO said it did plan to retain “a small group of team members from their core product and engineering team.”

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Daylight

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Founded 2020
$20 million raised

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Image Credits: Daylight

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In May 2023, Daylight, an LGBTQ+ banking platform that had raised $20 million in funding, announced it would be shutting down and ceasing operations on June 30. The announcement came months after NY Magazine published an explosive feature on the neobank. The article honed in on Daylight, whose seed and Series A fundraises TechCrunch had covered here and here, respectively. NY Mag’s piece detailed a lawsuit brought on by three former employees as well as alleged fabrications and inappropriate behavior on the part of co-founder and CEO Rob Curtis.

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In a blog published in May, Curtis said he felt like “now is the right time to exit this market.” We heard in October that the suits had been dismissed by a federal court and that Daylight was acquired, but Curtis declined to comment further when we reached out. It was a disappointing outcome but one that highlighted the challenges of neobanks that target specific demographics. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw a flurry of such startups raising money, but since then, things have been relatively quiet. Part of the challenge is providing differentiated services that are actually unique to a certain community. Since Daylight’s closure, Curtis has moved on to a tequila-related venture.

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Fuzzy

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Founded 2016
$80 million raised

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Image Credits: Fuzzy

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Some startups die long, protracted deaths. Not Fuzzy. The pet care telehealth startup was here one day and gone the next. In February, the firm was reportedly hyping its growth on internal Zoom calls. Within months, the company had closed up shop. Fuzzy’s site was taken down without any warning issued to customers.

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From the sound of things, even some top execs were left wondering precisely what had happened to the startup. That certainly hasn’t stopped the competition from attempting to capitalize on Fuzzy’s demise.

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IRL

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Founded 2016
$200 million raised

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irl logo

Image Credits: IRL

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IRL’s meltdown was a hot mess. In 2022, the event organizing social app laid off one-quarter of its 100 or so employees. Co-founder and CEO Abraham Shafi put the blame on an extremely volatile market, while stating that the company’s cash runway would last at least until 2024. Then it shut down this June.

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No social network is completely devoid of bots, but an internal investigation by its board of directors found that such accounts constituted around 95% of its 20 million active monthly users. In a lawsuit filed last month, IRL’s co-founders accused their investors of falsifying that figure in order to sabotage the firm, which was previously valued at $1.17 billion.

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IronNet

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Founded 2014
$400 million raised

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Keith Alexander on stage speaking to Matt Burns at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2017

IronNet founder Keith Alexander at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2017. Image Credits: Noam Galai / Getty Images

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IronNet, founded by former NSA director Keith Alexander, was a once-promising cybersecurity startup, which at its peak raised more than $400 million in funding. But in the end, IronNet was no match for market forces (and poor leadership). After a bumpy ride going public and rounds of layoffs, Alexander departed as CEO in July and was replaced with the chairperson of the company’s largest investor. IronNet scrambled to stay afloat, but lasted only a few weeks longer before it laid off everyone else and filed for bankruptcy.

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Mandolin

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Founded 2020
$17 million raised

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Plenty of startups struggled through the pandemic. Others thrived. Founded in June 2020, the concert livestreaming platform was the right startup at the right time. After all, it had only been a few months since venues across the U.S. closed their doors indefinitely. Mandolin’s subsequent rise was swift, taking on big name events with artists ranging from Lil’ Wayne to the Lumineers.

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A year after its founding, the Indianapolis-based firm raised a $12 million Series A, following a $5 million seed round the previous October. In 2022, it seemed as though the platform was still thriving, even as venues across the country had re-opened. Mandolin diversified into other aspects of the live music experience, including venue partnerships and merchandizing.

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This April, however, the startup announced on Instagram that it was closing up shop. “After 3 incredible years,” it noted, “we are sad to announce that Mandolin will no longer be offering the digital fan experiences you’ve come to love.”

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Veev

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Founded 2008
$597 million raised

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Veev raises $400M

Image Credits: Veev

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Veev, a real estate developer turned tech-enabled prefab homebuilder, as of November was on the verge of shuttering after reaching unicorn status last year, according to multiple reports. Calcalist reported on November 26 that the company — which raised a staggering $600 million in total, $400 million of which was secured in March of 2022 — was going to have to close up shop after an “abrupt cancellation of a capital-raising initiative.” Later that week, it was reported that Veev was “undergoing liquidation.”

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It was a bit of a shocking turn of events considering just how much money the company had raised not even two years prior. The closure was not the first startup failure for Veev co-founders Heller and Ami Avrahami. Another one of their proptech ventures, Reali, began a shutdown in August of 2022 after raising more than $290 million in debt and equity funding. Zeev Ventures was an investor in both companies.

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ZestMoney

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Founded 2015
$121 million raised

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ZestMoney founders

ZestMoney founders resign as Goldman Sachs-backed fintech struggles to raise funds. Image Credits: ZestMoney

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In mid-May, Manish reported on the fact that founders of ZestMoney had resigned from the startup. The Indian fintech, whose ability to underwrite small ticket loans to first-time internet customers, once drew the backing of many high-profile investors, including Goldman Sachs. By December, Manish had reported that ZestMoney was shutting down following unsuccessful efforts to find a buyer.

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The Bengaluru-headquartered startup — which also identified PayU, Quona, Zip, Omidyar Network and Ribbit Capital among its backers — employed about 150 people and had raised over $130 million in its eight-year journey.

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Zume

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Founded 2015
$445 million raised

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Image Credits: Zume

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“Pizza was our prototype,” co-founder and CEO Alex Garden told me in 2018. Three years after its founding, Zume made a major pivot. While it will forever be remembered as the pizza robot startup (that’s a hard identity to shake), the Southern Californian company cast a wider net. First it was exploring non-pizza delivery trucks. Two years later, it pivoted into sustainable food packaging.

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Throughout its many lives, one certainly can’t pin Zume’s ultimate demise on a failure to adapt. Nor was it a lack of funding, as the company raised nearly half-a-billion in its eight-year history. That includes a 2018 SoftBank round of $325 million that valued the company at north of two billon.

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Zume liquidated its assets in early June.

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總結
許多初創公司的失敗並非像FTX或Theranos那樣引人注目,更多的是因時機不對、資金枯竭或宏觀經濟因素等原因。根據PitchBook的調查,僅今年就有約3200家美國風險投資支持的私人初創公司倒閉,共籌集超過270億美元。本文列舉了幾個失敗的初創公司,包括Braid、CloudNordic、Convoy、Daylight、Fuzzy和IRL。這些公司的失敗原因各異,如Braid因無法建立可行的業務而結束,CloudNordic因遭受勒索軟體攻擊而倒閉,Convoy則被Flexport收購,Daylight因內部問題和訴訟而結束,Fuzzy則在一夜之間關門,IRL因虛假用戶而被迫關閉。這些案例凸顯了初創公司面臨的各種挑戰和困難。