Startup Failures in Australia

Australia's best-funded online tutoring startup burned AUD 80M before selling for AUD 2M.

1.2 million players loved the game but none would pay enough to keep it alive.

FMCG shelf optimization AI that optimized itself out of existence when its anchor client walked away.

Australia's most efficient electrolyzer startup ran dry when the hydrogen economy stalled.

AI skills testing startup that couldn't survive when LinkedIn and HireVue ate its market.

Australian expense card startup crushed by global giants entering its home market.

9,000 chargers deployed but couldn't charge its way to profitability.

Australia's mapping darling went too big, too fast in the US and got swallowed whole.

Retroactive carbon credit invalidation wiped out a mining offset platform overnight.

The real estate portal that tried to break Australia's property duopoly and ran out of money.

Australia's shipping software star shed 30% of staff when post-COVID e-commerce volumes crashed.

Australia's fashion rental leader survived lockdowns only to discover customers preferred buying clothes post-pandemic.

The billion-dollar blockchain TCG that aimed to beat Hearthstone with NFT ownership — raised $200M, but GODS token fell 96% and active players plateaued far below targets.

Office fitout marketplace whose entire market evaporated with remote work adoption.

Tried to out-feature ServiceNow with 1% of the budget.

The human data labeler that AI made obsolete

Autonomous replenishment AI that couldn't replenish its own client base after supply chain chaos.

DEI tech found out that Asia-Pacific boardrooms move slower than Silicon Valley timelines.

Australian digital mortgage broker. Rising rates killed the market. Shut down.

Australia's homegrown MOOC platform with 3M users that couldn't monetize against global giants.

A $100M identity platform killed by its own government's competition.

A decade of privacy-first identity APIs couldn't crack the commercial code.

Government clouds evaporate when audit sunshine hits.

The peer-to-peer energy grid that regulators never let fly.

Predicting droughts couldn't save them from their own data dependency drought.

Australia's BNPL pioneer. Block acquired it for $29B. Rate rises cut valuation 80%.

Autonomous drilling dreams crushed by hardware costs and a BHP contract cancellation.

The cloud accounting pioneer who invented the category, then wrote its users a Xero migration guide on the way out.

Australia's first neo-bank — returned all customer deposits before shutting down.

Australian BNPL giant worth A$8B at peak — now worth A$700M after the rate-rise BNPL massacre

The move-to-earn app that turned running shoes into NFTs — until the tokenomics made it mathematically impossible

Australian shipping SaaS. Shopify Shipping arrived. Category commoditized.

Farm management software that couldn't grow beyond Australia's conservative farming community.

When your product demo sinks, so does your company.

Australia's CDR open banking pioneer couldn't survive long enough for regulation to create real market demand.

Australia's DTC mattress and furniture brand. Post-COVID furniture demand collapsed.

Solar-powered desert farming was technically brilliant but commercially bankrupt.

The "get paid to exercise" app that hit $2.4B valuation in five months — then watched its GMT token fall 95% as the earn mechanism gutted itself.

D&B copied their ASX data edge in 18 months and offered it cheaper to all their clients.

Australian SMB workflow tool killed by a global wave of free-tier project management giants.

Australia's design marketplace. Vista acquired it. Independent trajectory ended.

35 VR venues worldwide, zero revenue for 12 months — COVID made the math impossible.

Last-minute tickets for a world that had no events left to be last-minute about.

Modular vertical farming for restaurants — killed by hardware economics and COVID in 2020.

Three nanosatellites up, AU$150M short, and zero revenue — a small satellite cautionary tale.

The Australian neobank that paid 2.25% on deposits before it had a single loan — and ran out of runway in the same week

Australian neobank. Couldn't raise after COVID. Returned licence.

On-demand insurance for single socks was a UX dream and an actuarial nightmare.

Australia's stationery darling over-expanded globally and collapsed under AUD 30M in debt.

Two thousand eight hundred venues listed, zero events happening.

Australian aged care reform delays froze a promising IoT elder monitoring startup

Fair-price sports ticketing marketplace wiped out when COVID cancelled the entire season.

Dental patients lost teeth; Dental4Windows Cloud lost data — and its clients.

Remote monitoring hardware killed by a regulator's reclassification letter.

Australia's favorite budgeting app got acqui-hired into irrelevance by Zip Co.

Australia's ASX-listed P2P lender ran out of wholesale funding and became a shell company.

Australian delivery SaaS. Announced fake contracts. ASIC charged founders.

An AI copywriting tool for real estate agents that discovered agents won't pay for productivity.

Lachlan Murdoch-backed ad startup sued Google for USD 300M and ran out of money mid-lawsuit.

The graphic design unicorn almost died at seed stage. 100 investor rejections.

250 million downloads, $100M in settlements — the peer-to-peer network that the music industry destroyed.

Premium SMS and mobile content subscription services across Asia-Pacific

Australian travel booking startup for Asian tourists that raised $7M and was liquidated by COVID.

Australian predictive analytics AI hit TAM ceiling and failed to break into the US market

Australian AI banking app listed on ASX shut down after failing to find a viable business model

On-demand car servicing and maintenance at your door

Australian restaurant online ordering platform that let cafes and food venues take orders directly without paying commissions to Uber Eats

Sydney's online legal documents platform became a zombie as DocuSign and global CLM players commoditised the category

Australian mobile workforce management platform that raised $75M and wound down in 2023 as Salesforce and ServiceNow absorbed the category.

ASX-listed Australian BNPL that expanded to the UK and US before collapsing in 2023

Australian short-term rental management platform eliminated by Airbnb's own host tools

Australian equity crowdfunding platform stalled as retail investor appetite evaporated post-COVID

Anonymous question-and-answer social network for Gen Z in Australia

A Delivery Hero-backed e-cargo bike startup that went into administration when its delivery platform customers collapsed.

Sydney fractional property investment platform that raised $12M AUD and shut down when rising rates made leveraged fractional property the worst-of-both-worlds investment.

An ASX-listed Australian neobank that ran out of capital after years of lending losses and ceased new loan origination in 2024.

Australia's neobank that APRA rejected while approving four competitors

Australian document AI for financial services — Microsoft Syntex arrived and the category collapsed