Startup Failures in UK

UK's B2B mental health platform couldn't make the employer-pays model work at scale

Corporate card unicorn-hopeful drowned in a sea of identical competitors.

The UK gig-economy insurer that couldn't make commercial vehicle insurance profitable at scale

Winning awards at Davos doesn't pay the bills when HR can't measure your ROI.

The curated tech job board that the hiring freeze turned into a ghost town.

The most evidence-based hiring platform couldn't survive a funding gap.

Parametric insurance that triggered payouts—just not for the right losses.

AI copywriting pioneer for enterprise email, commoditized out of existence by ChatGPT.

Built the Moody's for carbon credits just as the entire market stopped buying carbon credits.

The company that open-sourced Stable Diffusion and disrupted the entire creative industry — then collapsed into governance chaos, unpaid employees, and a founder resignation when its $4B valuation met operational reality

Award-winning seaweed packaging dissolved before restaurants would pay the premium.

$530M raised. Sold to Entrust. Price undisclosed — and that says everything.

Battery supply chain traceability startup died when regulation it depended on was delayed.

Built the right community, couldn't build the right business model around it.

Sharia-compliant digital banking for global Muslims — a real market need that couldn't find enough customers fast enough.

Six million users across 95 countries couldn't generate enough revenue to sustain an AI therapy chatbot.

The music recommendation pioneer with 10M scrobbling users was acquired by CBS for $280M — then CBS never invested, Spotify built the same recommendations, and CBS sold it for a fraction of the price

Backed by UK's biggest banks, Bink still couldn't buy customer loyalty.

Pay-per-mile sounded fair until low-mileage drivers proved to be the wrong risk pool.

UK neobank for migrants and the underbanked raised £130M over 9 years. Couldn't reach profitability. Shut down September 2024.

The async work OS that couldn't find its place between Notion and Slack.

Open banking infrastructure that built the rails but couldn't get enterprise trains to run on time.

100,000 users, £3M revenue, and zero path to profitability — UK's freelancer neobank ran out of road in 2024.

Built a moat around contract AI, then ChatGPT filled it overnight.

Behavioral biometrics pioneer that Goldman backed but the market couldn't scale.

The AI cybersecurity unicorn IPO'd at £2.3B and was taken private at a major discount after short-seller attacks

The $1.7B apprenticeship platform cut 30% of staff as enterprise edtech budgets tightened

Insuring tech startups seemed smart until every client filed a cyber claim at once.

The UK SME lender that raised £200M+ but couldn't escape rising bad debt in the post-COVID reckoning

Cooling air couldn't cool the burn rate on this energy storage pioneer.

Great Product Hunt launch, wrong unit economics — 800 users at $12 ARPU doesn't build a company.

When tech companies stop learning, their edtech vendors die first.

UK's AI home care unicorn clipped by NHS funding cuts and a costly German expansion.

The cloud-native core banking platform hit by a funding crunch and deep restructuring after a $2.7B valuation

A $500M enterprise automation unicorn undone by budget freezes and incumbent competition.

Raised $100M for ZK privacy then shut down the entire team overnight.

Nineteen years of textile recycling R&D ended in administration, not revolution.

Ten years of AI decision-making tech that never cracked enterprise scale.

The $7.75B virtual events unicorn that COVID created and the post-pandemic world destroyed

UK's all-cards-in-one fintech went into administration and was rescued at a fraction of its $250M valuation

Survived COVID only to bleed out from the recovery it couldn't afford to fund.

The UK's most-funded digital ID app that consumers never felt they needed.

Tried to automate the unmigrateable — and broke Barclays in the process.

The SoftBank-backed African crypto exchange cut 35% of staff as crypto winter wiped its core markets

ESA-validated deployable antennas, zero commercial scale — a deep-tech timing tragedy.

The banking-as-a-service platform that survived its own collapse through a distressed sale

Certified too late—26 months of regulatory delays killed the contracts that waited.

Raised $1B at $7.75B valuation during COVID. Sold for $15M when the world went back to in-person events.

Elsevier bought the world's best research collaboration tool and spent a decade slowly dismantling it.

AI lithium exploration with a 34% false positive rate — a fatal error in critical minerals.

Britain's estate agent disruption ended for £1

Australian BNPL that raised £63M to conquer the UK market announced it was ceasing all UK and Irish operations in January 2023 as BNPL economics collapsed across the sector.

Clinical NLP pioneer with NHS contracts underpiced into extinction by Amazon in 2018.

THG's stock implosion killed GLOSSYBOX UK as collateral damage in a corporate meltdown.

Britain's bioplastics pioneer dissolved when cost reality met sustainability ambition.

Embedded insurance at checkout sounded brilliant — until the math didn't work.

$97M in embedded finance fuel burned on global expansion before the engine was ready.

AI climate control for specialty crops failed when the hardware kept killing the plants.

UK's employer-of-record startup got Deel'd and Remoted out of the market it helped create

Tried to out-ESG Bloomberg with £12M and an algorithm. Bloomberg noticed nothing.

The £8B online car dealer that expanded itself into administration

The London startup that built real-time payment rails on open banking APIs — then shut down in September 2023 when its Series C round fell through and 130 employees were let go overnight

The UK's largest all-electric car subscription service. 50,000 drivers. Then the fleet couldn't be refinanced.

UK's SME online lender cut deep as rising rates and SMB stress eroded its growth narrative

ChatGPT killed this chatbot startup in under 90 days.

The UK digital mortgage broker that raised £64M but couldn't survive rising interest rates

The virtual events platform that became a $7.75B unicorn during the COVID lockdowns — sold to RingCentral for $15M in 2023 after in-person events resumed.

The connected car data marketplace that went public via SPAC then delisted and wound down within two years

The DTC mattress that couldn't sleep through its unit economics

Inventory intelligence for small retailers wiped out by the platforms they were built to serve.

The virtual events platform raised 1B at 7.75B valuation during COVID lockdowns and sold its main product for 15M as in-person events returned.

UK SME challenger bank raised £21M, won FCA authorisation, and quietly shut down without ever achieving commercial scale.

Steve Bartlett's social media empire listed at £200M, then collapsed after he left for Dragons' Den

Built the future of SME banking — then got stuck in endless bank pilot purgatory.

Rebranded three times, never found the right community platform identity.

Scotland's indie fashion champion couldn't survive when boutique suppliers closed faster than new ones joined.

EV unicorn that went public at $13B and never shipped a van

The UK flat-fee estate agent that conquered Britain, then lost $200M expanding to markets where the model did not translate

UK hospitality procurement platform that inflation and fragmentation slowly dismantled.

UK studio behind viral hit Fall Guys was acquired by Epic Games in 2021—then its game was made exclusive to Epic Games Store, PS4/Xbox versions were deleted, and the community collapsed.

UK's e-scooter operator grounded by the country's failure to legalise private scooter use

Even Monzo users wouldn't buy life insurance from a pop-up notification.

The West End's bag delivery startup got left holding the bag.

The AI money coach that raised $140M on viral TikTok growth — and discovered that users who can't save money also can't pay subscription fees

A loyalty spinout that was always just one restructuring away from oblivion.

Emerging market invoice finance melted down when defaults surged and regulators closed doors.

GDPR killed the anti-bias hiring AI before employers ever trusted it.

Raised $26M to extract the web's data, then competitors extracted their market share.

The UK remittance fintech that raised $165M to challenge Wise — and cut 30% of staff as competition erased its pricing advantage

Oxford-backed, FDA-designated sleep therapy with ironclad clinical evidence that couldn't find a payer willing to cover it.

The AI drug discovery unicorn that couldn't discover profits

UK's billion-pound EV battery gigafactory that never laid a cell

The UK greeting card platform IPO'd at £1.2B at the COVID peak and collapsed 75% within 18 months

GPT-4's launch froze every enterprise buying decision — Evolution AI's pipeline evaporated overnight.

The AI doctor startup that promised to put a doctor in everyone's pocket — then filed Chapter 7

Killed by ethics scrutiny and budget cuts before it could prove its value.

The luxury fashion marketplace that peaked at $23B and was rescued from bankruptcy by Coupang for $500M — a 98% destruction of peak value

26 years of carbon offset history ended when Jamie Dimon decided the climate wasn't urgent enough.

AI matchmaking for events couldn't find a match for its own survival.

Enterprise privacy darling that couldn't turn data protection into profits.

UK's rental deposit lending startup shut down as FCA scrutiny and thin margins made the product commercially unviable

Rode the freight boom; drowned in the freight bust.

Built on Airtable's ecosystem, killed when Airtable cloned their product.

The UK electric truck startup that reached production-ready hydrogen-electric trucks — entered administration with 191 employees after failing to close Series C funding

UK drone airspace startup that built the infrastructure but couldn't monetize it.

Modular banking platform that couldn't escape the gravitational pull of endless enterprise customization.

Outgunned by a rival with 10x the capital, Hastee was acqui-hired into oblivion.

COVID made Qudini essential for every retailer; COVID's end made it optional for all of them.

The $250M travel media startup that laid off 90% of staff and pivoted out of media in one brutal week

Sold to Chegg just before ChatGPT made both of them obsolete.

Ex-Deliveroo execs raised $40M for quick commerce. Sold to Gopuff within a year. Gopuff then also collapsed.

The UK crypto bank that lost 336 Bitcoin in a hack and never recovered operationally

UK enterprise collaboration pioneer raised £36M and built a government-grade product—then lost the category to Microsoft Teams.

SoftBank-backed event travel marketplace. It left hotel partners holding $100M in unpaid bills.

11 years of human-plus-AI styling couldn't crack the conversion problem that makes fashion personalization profitable.

All-in-one remote hub that tried to out-Notion Notion on a pre-seed budget.

AI freight document processing swallowed by the very platform it competed with.

Brilliant energy disaggregation tech that couldn't hit the accuracy bar utilities demanded.

Open banking for financial wellness — too early for lenders, too niche for employers.

The UK furniture unicorn that IPO'd at £775M and filed for administration 16 months later

Shell's virtual power plant bet got crushed by a challenger energy giant.

A modern vet practice OS that couldn't convince clinics to ditch their fax machines.

The BBC-backed podcast player that made listening visual — and made production too complex.

The London ultra-fast grocery startup that raised $200M and shut down when the math of delivering in 20 minutes never worked in one of the world's most expensive cities

UK P2P SMB lender IPO'd at £1.5B — stock fell 90%+ as default rates rose and the model broke

The UK global mobile startup that raised $500M+ and served 500 markets — then its key investor was sanctioned by the UK government and the company went into administration

GDPR drained the budget; Fresha drained the clients.

No-code chatbot builder survived eight years bootstrapped, then vaporized by a crowded market.

Smart home insurance sounded revolutionary until a £300 IoT kit made unit economics impossible.

AI that watched employees too closely — regulators and workers pushed back hard.

Ten-minute grocery delivery that lasted ten months in the UK

NHS and Barclays partnerships couldn't save a personal data platform with no paying users.

Built a gaming tournament empire on COVID tailwinds that vanished with lockdowns.

Ex-MI6 founders built a geopolitical risk tool that couldn't crack the enterprise sales cycle.

Taught math to a million kids but couldn't balance its own books.

Award-winning in 2019, unresponsive website by 2022. COVID turned a slow death into no death notice at all.

$160M drained in minutes by an exploit the team knew existed but hadn't patched

The US q-commerce giant tried to colonize Europe and retreated within 18 months

The UK proptech that promised to sell your home in 10 days — and ran out of cash trying to honour that promise.

UK's first digital mortgage broker raised £23M, was acquired by Better.com — then shut when Better imploded.

Non-invasive glucose monitor startup that couldn't solve the hard physics problem it was built on.

Cold chain IoT startup burned out when Brexit and COVID tripled its hardware costs.

In-store digital engagement for Primark and ALDO couldn't outlast COVID's retail freeze.

Clever lampposts, fatal procurement cycles — the EV charging startup killed by council bureaucracy.

Cambridge-built pet health wearable that veterinary bureaucracy killed before consumers could buy it.

The UK's oldest crypto exchange that quietly shut down after a decade, beaten by Coinbase and Binance

NHS procurement cycles killed a promising GDPR metadata platform before revenue could begin.

UK savings app offering 5% interest on bonds raised £33M. Could not reach profitability. Shut October 2021 with 30,000 customers.

UK's social ticketing app for millennials ran out of events—and runway.

16 years of peer-to-peer lending, ended by the rules it helped create

London's most hyped IPO in years became its worst first-day performance in decades

Free vet advice for 80% of users who never opened their wallets.

Brexit wiped out the care workforce that UK eldercare marketplaces depended on

242 years. Amazon took the last decade. COVID finished it.

Open data platforms don't survive when incumbents also open up.

When Wagestream owns every employer relationship, there's no room for a second player.

A helpdesk pioneer that couldn't survive the Zendesk era it helped inspire.

A payments compliance layer with FCA approval but only 12 paying clients before the money ran out.

Smarter cities, unsustainable margins.

The e-commerce personalization leader — acquired before the category it built went mainstream.

Supply-chain finance. Built on insurance that did not exist.

The UK's top quantum software firm surrendered independence because software alone can't survive without hardware.

Building a marketplace for genomic data means convincing hospital systems to sell what they think they should give for free.

NHS-tested mixed reality training that couldn't survive the sales cycle.

Flat-fee transit sounded like a deal, until it was.

Peer-to-peer energy trading crushed by the regulatory middleware it couldn't escape.

RBS spent millions building a neobank that lasted exactly six months.

UK's flexible gym marketplace erased in a single government lockdown order.

Sports agents protect their opacity—software that exposes deals doesn't get bought.

Another language app that forgot users forget to use language apps.

Built for love, destroyed by a pandemic it had no contingency plan for.

The virtual fitting room that was 10 years too early — killed by slow mobile rendering and minimal conversion uplift.

2 million loyal readers couldn't save a women's media brand that never cracked revenue.

Helping freight forwarders go digital—until digital giants made them irrelevant.

When workforce analytics giants swallowed every niche, this Edinburgh firm had no room left to breathe.

The premium sports streaming service launched in the UK for £4.99/month and collapsed within one year

178 years old. Killed by online booking in 2019.

UK's second-largest contractor. £1.5B pension deficit. Zero cash.

A £29M anchor investor pulling out sank the whole personal finance vision.

Mapped every deal relationship in the enterprise — except the one that would buy them out.

$112M discovered that luxury asset lending is just pawnbroking with a VC deck.

The original crypto Ponzi scheme that promised 1% daily returns — and made the phrase "Hey hey hey" famous before collapsing with $2.6 billion in investor losses.

Amateur GPS tracking hit a professional wall when the big players moved downstream.

TransferWise and Revolut launched and made this startup's entire premise obsolete overnight.

Errol Damelin built a £1B payday lender on 5,853% APR loans. FCA capped rates in 2015. Wonga wrote off £220M in unaffordable loans. Filed administration August 2018 after compensation claim surge.

An Oxford-born research tool proved that a prestigious pedigree cannot replace a network-effect moat.

Four years of piping data, then the tap ran dry on Series A funding.

Britain's home-delivery used car startup ran out of road before Cazoo made the model famous.

Getting acquired by Apple is a win — unless it means your product disappears forever.

The Ethereum client company froze $280M in ETH with a single buggy smart contract and never recovered trust

Waited for Open Banking to arrive — shut down before it did.

Europe's Netflix before Netflix arrived — then Netflix arrived.

The studio Peter Molyneux founded after leaving Bullfrog — creator of Black & White and Fable — was shut by Microsoft in April 2016 as Fable Legends was cancelled mid-development.

Music streaming and sharing platform where bands and fans could connect and discover music together.

Dan Wagner raised $250M+ at a self-declared $2.7B valuation for a mobile commerce platform that generated £2.3M in revenue. Went into administration February 2016. Revenue multiple: 1,200x.

The UK music streaming service that survived six years and was bought just to be shut down

A social networking platform that reunited people through shared schools, universities, workplaces, and other common connections.

BT's financial network spinout got stranded on legacy tech while the cloud ate its lunch.

Europe's biggest Kickstarter drone raised £2.3M and delivered fewer than 600 of 15,000 units promised.

Sold for $44M before growth flatlined completely — a lucky exit, not a win.

Location-based mobile app connecting businesses with customers seeking flash deals in real-time.

Peter Gabriel's music startup was acquired by Tesco — and that's where both ideas went to die

Last.fm invented algorithmic music discovery in 2002. CBS Interactive bought it for $280M and slowly killed it.

Berg built a cloud platform powering Little Printer, an IoT device that printed personalized news and social media content.

Dinnr was a consumer food/dining related startup.

Full-color 3D printing promise that evaporated into an acquisition before shipping a single unit.

Berg was a cloud platform that powered Little Printer, an Internet-of-Things device that printed interesting content from the web and social media.

AOL paid $850M for Europe's biggest social network and drove it into the ground in two years.

A social travel network that let users coordinate trips and share travel plans with their contact list.

The studio that created Lemmings and WipEout was shut by Sony in 2012 — 19 years after the acquisition — when the racing genre declined on PlayStation platforms.

The studio that made Project Gotham Racing and Geometry Wars was closed by Activision after Blur failed to outsell a direct competitor released the same week.

The creator of Crackdown launched APB — a $100M online shooter with subscription pricing — and went into administration 79 days after launch.

The studio that made TimeSplitters — founded by four ex-Rare GoldenEye developers — went into administration in 2009 after Haze received some of the worst PS3 launch reviews.

The studio that invented the god game genre — Populous, Theme Hospital, Dungeon Keeper — was slowly dissolved by EA over nine years after their 1995 acquisition.

Beenz.com invented internet currency in 1998. It raised $100M and failed. Bitcoin did it with $0 in VC.

Swedish-founded fashion dot-com burned $135M in eighteen months and became the defining symbol of dot-com excess.

The luxury fashion startup that burned £80M per month building a website most users' internet connections couldn't load

UK omnichannel payment orchestration startup that raised $15M and was squeezed out by Adyen and Stripe.

UK personalized prescription skincare startup that raised $25M and hit profitability ceiling on subscription churn.

The UK same-day delivery pioneer acquired by eBay and quietly shut down after three years

Raised $135M to build 3D interactive fashion e-commerce in 18 countries — the website required broadband that 90% of users didn't have in 1999

London pay-per-hour car insurance pioneer raised 26 million pounds and shut down when the 2023 funding market made raising its Series B impossible.

London AI photo book app that raised 10M pounds and competed against Photobox and Snapfish before shutting down as the photo printing market contracted.

London's lunar rover startup ran out of capital before its Astrobotic-carried mission could lift off commercially

The private GP platform beaten by its own NHS going digital

The personalised period care subscription that couldn't survive Amazon Prime

UK contract AI pioneer acquired by iManage and dissolved into its document intelligence platform.

Freelancer neobank with built-in accounting absorbed by Tide

The co-living and hostel chain for digital nomads raised $100M and listed on NASDAQ only to file for administration of UK entities in 2023 as hotel economics crushed the wellness narrative.

UK private assets marketplace stalled as wealth managers refused to change workflows

UK peer-to-peer lending pioneer that abandoned its core P2P model after FCA pressure and became a traditional bank.

London's campus mobile payments startup raised £25M to become the UK's largest mobile wallet but went into administration as contactless cards made its model obsolete.

UK diaspora savings and banking app for South Asian and African communities shut after £2.4M raise

The London AI climate risk startup that used machine learning to model catastrophic wildfire risk for reinsurers and quietly shut down in 2023

The crowdfunded Robinhood rival that peaked at £650M and sold for £160M

London B2B warehousing marketplace raised 3.5 million pounds to match businesses with spare warehouse capacity and shut down when the supply side never materialized at scale.

UK livestock data platform raised 8 million pounds to digitize beef and dairy farm management and shut down when the Series B market closed in 2023.

UK's largest will-writing service disrupted a £150M legal market with £90 online wills but ran out of cash trying to expand into funerals and probate.

UK fractional property investing app shut by FCA regulatory requirements before reaching scale

Scotland's neobank that discovered Scottish identity isn't a fintech differentiator

London's legal translation and compliance platform was squeezed by Lilt and DeepL's enterprise legal features

London's art provenance technology startup discovered the art authentication market was too small and too trust-resistant

Manchester's neobank in the world's most competitive consumer fintech market

London's Korean beauty subscription box couldn't survive the shift from subscription novelty to on-demand convenience

London's taxi-hailing app raised $100M but was crushed by Uber's war chest and merged into MyTaxi.

Open banking API aggregator could not survive Plaid and TrueLayer eating its market

The London fintech using Open Banking to offer credit to immigrants and young people with thin credit files, raising 10 million pounds before shutting down in 2023

Bought By Many reinvented pet insurance with data-driven underwriting and raised over 50 million pounds — then went into administration in October 2023 as claims costs outpaced premiums.

The UK equity loan startup helping first-time buyers get on the property ladder, wound down when rising interest rates destroyed its funding model

London's underground farm growing microgreens 33 meters below the city in former WWII tunnels raised £8M and entered administration in 2023 as energy costs proved unworkable.

A payment orchestration startup that raised $50M and struggled to survive as Stripe and Adyen built native orchestration features.

The boutique indie shop marketplace that Amazon made irrelevant

AI hyperrealistic video startup behind the viral Tom Cruise deepfakes that could not build a commercial model.

Raised £2.3M from 15,000+ backers for a tiny autonomous drone — WIRED's investigation found it barely flew, only 600 of 15,000 ordered were delivered, and the company folded in administration

The UK first fully digital buy-to-let mortgage lender shut down when the UK property market correction made its loan book unviable.

The British alt-protein startup that rode the plant-based hype to raise £24M and entered administration in 2023 as consumer demand collapsed

UK student digital bank that raised $9M and was killed by Monzo, Revolut, and Starling before reaching scale.

Digital small business insurance built on a Lloyd's of London platform

London flexible office marketplace raised over $30M to replace WeWork and shut down when the remote work shift permanently collapsed SME office demand.

London luxury home rental pioneer acquired by AccorHotels for $168M, slowly wound down as strategy shifted.

UK crypto asset manager that pivoted operations to Hong Kong after FCA regulatory crackdowns made UK operations unviable.

UK's fan-to-fan ticket marketplace raised $35M, was acquired by Ticketmaster, then shut down when Ticketmaster decided it competed with itself.

Britain's most celebrated AI chip startup raised $750M and was sold to SoftBank at a valuation far below its $2.8B peak as NVIDIA's dominance proved unassailable.

UK legal services platform for gig workers raised £10M but could not achieve adoption at scale

Africa-focused crypto exchange retreated from retail after UK FCA restrictions

Built internet loyalty currency in 30 countries with Citibank and Dell — the dot-com crash eliminated the advertising revenue that funded the Beenz rewards system

Hardware-enforced browser isolation — technically brilliant, commercially exhausted

London freelancer banking app raised 4 million pounds to solve the self-employed tax problem and shut down in November 2023 when further funding became unavailable.

The AI drug discovery pioneer that brought the first AI-designed drugs to trials and was acquired at a 75 percent discount

UK marketplace SME lender overcapitalized into unprofitable growth, then COVID destroyed demand

London luxury fashion marketplace that reached a $20B valuation and raised $1.7B before Coupang rescued it for $500M — a 97.5% value destruction.

Rocket Internet beauty subscription box launched in 19 countries, wound down by The Hut Group after 12 years.

British hypersonic propulsion pioneer that spent 34 years developing the SABRE engine before running out of funding.

Computer vision for UK retail shrinkage — hyperscaler APIs eliminated the business case

The British D2C sofa brand that spent a decade building a design-forward furniture identity and entered administration in 2022 as supply chain costs crushed its margins

London Amazon aggregator raised $200M to roll up third-party sellers and dissolved when Amazon changed its algorithm and the category imploded.

Commercial furniture B2B marketplace found procurement budgets dried up post-COVID

AR/AI unicorn worth $1.5B that went bankrupt over a founder control dispute.

UK kids-safe digital advertising platform acquired by Epic Games and shuttered as a standalone business.

The UK's fastest-growing renewable energy supplier entered special administration with 1.7M customers when wholesale gas prices surged 400% and its fixed-rate model collapsed.

UK talent lifecycle management unicorn candidate that raised $138M and was sold in a distressed exit.

UK earned wage access pioneer found employers unwilling to pay once competition made it free

European digital remittance challenger that raised $100M+ then sold to Papaya Global at distress in 2022.

London on-demand grocery startup acquired by Zapp at distress after raising £11M

British AI email security startup that raised 130 million dollars and sold to Proofpoint for a fraction of its peak value as Microsoft built competing features natively.

The refillable clean beauty brand that couldn't scale sustainability economics

British institutional crypto custody startup that raised 75 million dollars targeting the safest end of the market and was devastated when institutional appetite for crypto evaporated.

London on-demand laundry pickup and delivery startup raised 4 million pounds and shut down after five years when it proved impossible to make dirty clothes economically viable.

The £35M plant-based meal startup that couldn't make frozen food economics work

The London hotel distribution API startup that raised $20M to modernize how hotels connect with booking platforms and went silent after COVID obliterated travel

The trade finance unicorn raised $600M to fund SME exporters globally and was placed into receivership in December 2023 after fraud allegations emerged against its leadership.

UK higher education LMS built to replace Blackboard was itself replaced by Zoom and Slack.

London credit card startup redesigned how interest works and shut down when investors stopped writing checks in the rate hike era.

UK sustainable investment app shut down after raising £7M and running out of runway

London legal marketplace connecting SMBs to vetted lawyers raised 4 million pounds but could not build enough repeat transaction volume to justify its intermediary role.

Bossa Studios made Surgeon Simulator — one of the most viral games of the 2010s — and still could not build a sustainable indie game business on the back of it