Startup Failures in Germany

SoftBank's digital freight unicorn became a restructuring case when ocean rates crashed.

Built for Germany's supply chain law — but German SMEs chose Excel over SaaS.

European metals marketplace that processed €200M GMV before the steel slump killed it.

The German AI chip startup backed by SAP and Hewlett Packard Enterprise raised 120M euros and shut in December 2024 after failing to commercialize.

A German AI estimating tool outpaced by entrenched US incumbents in its home market.

Hydrogen's supply chain innovator collapsed when green hydrogen economics imploded.

Smart thermostats ran out of heat

Europe's BaaS darling discovered that regulators care more about AML than growth metrics.

The $135M Berlin presentation software startup crushed between Canva and AI-native competitors

Europe's KYC champion swallowed by the automation wave it helped create.

The insurtech unicorn that reached $4.5B and then imploded under underwriting losses

Germany's premium digital wealth manager ran out of wealthy believers.

Expanded too fast, too far, funded by a peak-market bet that didn't pay off.

Europe's most-funded e-scooter startup raised €200M and merged with Dutch rival DOTT in a distressed deal when both ran out of runway.

The German electric air taxi startup that raised €450M from Geely, Mercedes-Benz, and Intel — filed for insolvency in September 2024, one certification milestone away from its first commercial passenger flight

Germany's €750M quick-commerce startup sold to Rewe for a fraction of its peak value

Germany's neobank lost the race to N26 and Revolut and quietly retreated

Built the product regulators demanded—then regulators blinked.

Twelve years of bootstrapped progress erased in months by a $17B competitor.

German gambling law killed a €22M esports betting platform before it could scale.

Delivery Hero sold Foodpanda's Asia business. Delivery economics never profitable.

Built the standards, forgot to build the business.

The Berlin q-commerce startup that raised $750M and ended up absorbed by a supermarket chain

The 10-minute grocery unicorn that burned $1.3B delivering bananas at a loss

100 clients couldn't save finleap connect when the API aggregation market turned into a commodity war.

Made filing taxes easy. Forgot to make the business sustainable.

The bank for every fintech — undone by compliance it couldn't manage

The corporate furnished apartment marketplace that COVID killed and Airbnb-for-business finished off

The Berlin vertical farming unicorn raised 604M dollars and shut most operations in August 2023 after energy prices made indoor farming economics impossible.

German solar installation startup that rode the clean-energy wave to €100M raised, then drowned in thin margins.

15-minute medicine delivery burned €30M against Germany's pharmacy monopoly laws.

The German loan comparison pioneer displaced by rising rates and fintech rivals it helped inspire

The German solar car startup that raised €150M, IPO'd on Nasdaq, and never delivered a single vehicle

German SEO analytics pioneer outlasted the dot-com era only to be commoditized out of existence by better-funded rivals.

Germany's online furniture unicorn. IKEA went digital. Wayfair arrived. Home24 delisted.

EU CSRD delayed two years for SMEs. ImpactVise had two weeks of runway left.

The German employee app startup that raised €67M to connect deskless workers — acquired and shut down when SAP and Microsoft dominated the space

Germany's smart thermostat company sold to a French infrastructure fund in a distressed deal after burning through €200M+

Europe's biggest Amazon brand aggregator raised €500M. Then the aggregation model collapsed globally.

25 million developers used the code; almost none paid for it — $70M burned slowly.

KYC-as-a-service startup that couldn't verify its own survival.

Europe's €600M brain simulation megaproject ended without a single commercial neuromorphic product.

German electric jet startup raised €900M to build air taxis. Filed for insolvency before completing a single commercial flight. Then came back from the dead.

Rocket Internet co-founder raised $260M for a global q-commerce network spanning Europe and Latin America—then shut down all European operations in 2022 after just one year.

Wind Mobility got blown out of Europe by regulations its business model couldn't survive.

Digital hospital management that couldn't survive Germany's analog procurement culture.

A German payment gateway that tried to out-Stripe Stripe with inferior onboarding and no moat.

When your customers are dying car-share giants, your connected vehicle platform dies with them.

Found the best hotel price. Couldn't find the exit.

The Berlin quick-commerce unicorn that hit $1B in 9 months — absorbed by Getir a year later when the unit economics never closed

OKR SaaS met the German Mittelstand's love affair with legacy SAP.

Scaled internationally before solving problems locally.

Munich picking robot startup absorbed by investor-turned-acquirer Körber after missing speed targets.

Swedish audio brand backed by German investors. AirPods killed the premium headphone mid-market.

Civic data governance startup trapped between GDPR mandates and impossibly slow municipal procurement.

German families refused to trust algorithms with care home decisions for their parents

The P2P insurance pioneer that pivoted too late and too hard.

Germany's anonymous local social app. BeReal and TikTok arrived. Users left.

Germany's crypto banking pioneer filed for insolvency as the crypto winter froze its balance sheet.

Berlin SMB bank raised €37M and grew to 40,000 business customers. Acquired by Qonto in 2022. Qonto migrated all customers and shut the Penta brand.

Europe's most valuable neobank quietly closed its US operation — regulatory roadblocks and $9B valuations don't mix well

Germany's coal exit wiped out 40% of a predictive maintenance startup's market in months.

German labor law codetermination requirements made every customer deployment a 6-month legal negotiation.

GDPR compliance startup with 180 clients but too cheap to survive its own burn rate.

Germany's wedding marketplace survived two world wars but not one pandemic media rollup.

Tracking containers when the real prize was tracking data supremacy.

Pioneered crowdsourced creativity but couldn't monetize what it helped invent.

The €24B German fintech that was hiding a €1.9B hole — and fooled everyone for years.

The €3.5B neobank that Brexit kicked out of Britain

Hamburg fintech used 20,000 data points to lend to the unbanked across 8 countries. Credit losses in emerging markets consumed $484M. Filed for insolvency 2020.

Berlin smart meter analytics startup starved by Germany's own delayed rollout law.

€1.9B in a Philippine trust account that did not exist.

Beautiful electric scooters. Terrible timing.

Germany's "Google of credit scoring" raised €200M and went bankrupt after predatory lending backlash across six countries.

Germany's P2P lending pioneer. Open Banking arrived too late. Stagnated.

A decade of industrial AR disrupted by the platform players they helped educate.

Employee recognition SaaS. GDPR compliance cost more than the business was worth.

Twenty years of AI pricing expertise, absorbed into SAP after Zalando gave it away for free.

Helped Europeans chase better savings rates — then became invisible when its acquirer went wholesale.

GDPR wiped 22% of revenue in six months and a $60M publisher DMP was sold for scraps.

Europe's leading MOOC platform that could never escape the shadow of Coursera and edX

A Sunday email to investors announced the sudden death of a European real-estate crowdfunding pioneer.

Bosch's e-moped sharing venture died when the maintenance math never worked.

Germany's food delivery pioneer. Delivery Hero sold it because Lieferando won.

Fans demanded concerts everywhere; almost no one got the concert they demanded.

Munich's social banking pioneer tied interest rates to Facebook likes. Acquired by France's second-largest bank for €140M. Cultural clash shut it within 3 years.

Riding the 3D printing hype to a $750M valuation — then crashing back to Earth.

Germany's social gaming giant. Facebook platform changes ended it.

18 years, countless EU regulations, zero commercial scale — a German identity cautionary tale.

Free messaging social app with integrated content sharing and lifestyle discovery features.

A free messaging social app that integrated multiple services including content sharing, location discovery, and app automation features.

Bigpoint was Europe largest browser gaming company with 300 million registered users — then the mobile gaming revolution arrived and its Flash-based empire was sold to a Chinese buyer for a fraction of its former valuation.

Element Insurance became Germany first fully licensed digital insurance carrier and raised 124 million euros from Munich Re Ventures — then filed for insolvency in November 2022 as underwriting losses mounted.

Zenjob raised over $100M to digitize temporary staffing in Germany — then discovered that flexible labor platforms live and die on the margin between worker pay and client billing

Hamburg Airbnb competitor raised 12 million euros, survived eight years in the shadow of Airbnb, and was absorbed by Wimdu right before both shut down.

The Berlin meal-kit challenger to HelloFresh that IPO-ed on the Australian stock exchange and entered voluntary administration in 2024 after a decade of losses

AI supplier discovery for enterprise raised €50M and filed insolvency anyway

Rocket Internet Airbnb clone raised 90 million euros and folded seven years later when Airbnb proved that network effects cannot be bought.

Germany most celebrated AI company advised the G7 on artificial intelligence — but could not make its own enterprise automation software pay its bills.

Lesara raised 80 million euros to sell direct-from-factory fashion and home goods at ultra-low prices before Shein existed — and filed for insolvency in April 2019 after Shein, Wish, and Zalando attacked from every direction simultaneously.

Vacation rental meta-search choked by Airbnb and Booking

German health data app backed by major insurers could not achieve patient adoption at scale

€750M raised to deliver groceries in 10 minutes, absorbed by a supermarket in 3 years

Berlin's on-demand home cleaning unicorn hopeful filed for insolvency after raising €25M, unable to make the economics work.

German public broadcasting streaming joint venture that could not compete with Netflix and Disney Plus.

Mobile games publisher challenging Supercell in Europe

Berlin online luxury art auction platform raised €100M and went bankrupt amid shill bidding scandal

Microsoft acquired the world's most beloved task app for $200M — then shut it 5 years later after building Microsoft To-Do with the same features

Home24 was Europe leading online furniture retailer, IPO-ed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange at 14 euros per share — and was squeezed out by XXXLutz at 2.75 euros per share in 2023 after years of losses against IKEA and Wayfair.

German B2B payment orchestration — Stripe and Adyen arrived and made it redundant

Hamburg shared mobility platform software sold to SIXT at deep discount after raising €20M

The Swiss-German banking super-app that couldn't compete with Revolut's simplicity

Rocket Internet's SMB online lending platform raised €65M and operated in five countries before filing for insolvency as credit losses mounted.

A publicly listed German social trading platform that filed for insolvency after failing to find profitability across seven years.

Berlin's candidate-sharing recruitment network couldn't compete with LinkedIn Recruiter's network effects

German hybrid real estate agency that raised 130 million euros combining agents and technology before the German property market collapsed in 2022.

A Berlin B2B loan marketplace that spent nine years building cross-border credit infrastructure and ran out of time before achieving scale.

Neobank for freelancers squeezed out by full-service rivals

Getsafe built one of Europe fastest-growing digital insurance brands — then lost its insurance license and had to offload its entire customer base to a competitor

Berlin MMO studio raised 26 million euros over seven years to build a persistent online world called Seed and shut down before it ever launched.

Nordic IoT connectivity SaaS acquired before reaching scale

Digital funeral services startup that could not modernize a reluctant market

Solar-powered EV startup raised $150M via crowdfunding and IPO, then cancelled its only car.

The Berlin direct-to-consumer electric scooter maker that raised 50 million euros and filed for insolvency in April 2020

German local business directory that raised $20M and was killed by Google My Business.

A German digital rehab startup that could not survive the slow reimbursement approval process of the German statutory health system.

Nordic youth football social app sold to the Danish Football Union after six years and €6M

Same-day grocery delivery in under two hours in German cities

German beauty subscription box pioneer acquired by The Hut Group that was shut down after 12 years as the subscription beauty model lost all commercial viability.

German video advisory platform for insurance agents absorbed and shut down by Allianz

The German quick commerce startup that raised 750 million dollars in 18 months and sold to a supermarket chain

e.GO Mobile raised over 600 million euros to produce affordable electric city cars from Aachen — and filed for insolvency for the second time in April 2023 after manufacturing volumes never came close to covering costs.

Berlin B2B travel management startup for SMEs raised €20M, survived four years, and was absorbed by a competitor when COVID erased its entire market.

Germany's neobank competing against N26 in N26's home city

3D-printed custom prosthetics for amputees — the German healthcare system moved too slowly

German furnished apartment marketplace for corporate nomads filed insolvency

Crypto fund management platform evaporated with the 2018 bear market

Germany second largest food delivery platform absorbed by Delivery Hero after years of market share war

European digital freight forwarder that raised $640M and was devastated by the 2023 European logistics recession.

Construction equipment rental marketplace stalled at pilot stage

The photo marketplace that couldn't outshoot Getty

Furnished apartment search engine for international tenants in Europe

Berlin's q-commerce grocery unicorn ran out of cash as the 10-minute delivery wave crashed

German OKR and strategy execution SaaS that raised $13M and was killed by Lattice, Culture Amp, and Notion.

Peter Thiel-backed psychedelic medicine company that went public at $2.3B and collapsed 93% by 2024.

German baby products ecommerce pioneer that IPO-ed in 2015 and spent seven years being crushed by Amazon and dm.

The corporate-backed digital car insurer that could not escape its parent shadow

German luxury tailor-made travel startup backed by Lightspeed that raised 60 million euros and could not survive 18 months of COVID-era zero bookings.

InstaFreight raised 25 million euros to digitize European road freight brokerage — and sold to its strategic investor DB Schenker for roughly 13 million euros in 2021, after Transporeon and traditional brokers blocked the market digitization thesis.

A restaurant booking platform acquired by Recruit Holdings for $200M and shut down during COVID as its acquirer deprioritized the category.

Czech peer-to-peer lending platform raised CZK 500 million and shut down when European regulatory changes made its business model unviable.

A $300M co-living startup with properties across Europe and the US that was wiped out by COVID within weeks of its peak.

An Allianz-backed digital insurer that could not compete with incumbent pricing power in a regulated German market.

Rocket Internet's home cleaning play that never found profitable repeat economics

Belgian social media management SaaS absorbed before reaching escape velocity

German contract AI pioneer backed by Accenture Ventures absorbed by a real estate data group.

Berlin online language school that raised $68M and was disrupted by AI language tutors and Duolingo Max.

Online eyewear pioneer trapped between physical and digital

Industrial AI for German manufacturing quality control — great technology, impossible enterprise sales cycle

Tomorrow Bank raised €60M to prove sustainable banking could be profitable — then transferred its customers to Comdirect in September 2023 after the proof never materialized