Healthtech Startup Failures

The health insurance startup that raised $2.4B, IPO'd at $18, then filed for bankruptcy after losing billions on medical claims

Opioid addiction telehealth champion undone by Medicaid reimbursement cuts and unsustainable costs.

AI for seniors met the harsh reality of slow hospital sales and expensive hardware

Canada's telehealth darling for pets that discovered post-COVID demand was a mirage.

Precision mental health for employers raised $450M — then the employer benefits freeze hit the same category that made Lyra cut 30%

The digital health platform that went public via SPAC at $3.9B and was delisted after a 98% stock collapse

The employer health navigation IPO that spent four years proving the model didn't work at scale

A Gen Z therapy alternative that raised $18M then shut down declaring the mental health app market 'broken'.

Isabelle Kenyon raised $123M to build a doctor-supervised GLP-1 + coaching metabolic health platform. $800/month drug costs consumed subscription margins. Shut all patient operations March 2024.

A depression telehealth startup crushed by $400 customer acquisition costs and insurance gaps.

Buenos Aires veterinary telemedicine raised $350K — Argentine inflation 140%+ reduced discretionary pet spending; owners postponed even phone vet consultations; insufficient consultation volume to sustain

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

The AI blood test startup that couldn't get FDA clearance and pivoted to a crowded RCM market

A $1.4B companionship unicorn that burned bright and collapsed when Medicare scrutinized social care billing.

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

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

The therapy app that secretly shared users' mental health data with Facebook and Snapchat for ad targeting

Wireless headphones for senior group activities—then COVID cancelled group activities for two years.

Brazil's affordable primary care unicorn built 57 clinics serving the underinsured — then collapsed under its own expansion debt.

The AI chronic disease management unicorn raised $100M+ but chronic disease management economics never scaled

The AI-powered indoor farm that promised to feed Appalachia and filed bankruptcy instead

The pharmacy-as-a-service API that collapsed when its telehealth customers collapsed

The health data connectivity platform raised $50M promising to unlock patient data and was shut down by Centivo

Sweden's tightly regulated drug pricing killed digital pharmacy delivery economics.

The employer primary care startup raised $60M to replace corporate insurance and shut down when the model failed

A $3B mindfulness-meets-therapy merger that collapsed under cultural incompatibility and $220M in wasted capital.

The value-based care infrastructure company that went public at $2.4B and spent a decade losing money

Gig economy drivers and cold-chain medications proved an unreliable combination at scale.

Brazil's mental health subscription startup undercut by the regulator it needed to win.

Direct-to-consumer aligners, zero dentist, zero moat

India's $5.6B online pharmacy collapsed to a $216M valuation — a 96% wipeout — without filing for bankruptcy

The COVID testing unicorn that touched $6B valuation then evaporated when the pandemic ended

Corporate fitness marketplace built for an office-centric world that no longer exists.

The ADHD telehealth app that shut down suddenly, leaving patients without prescriptions

The asynchronous telehealth platform raised $30M and was shut down when Teladoc and Amazon Clinic made async care free

The employer healthcare navigation startup raised $200M at $2B and laid off 20% when it couldn't convert employer interest to revenue

The $1.2 billion digital pharmacy startup that promised same-day prescription delivery — and shut down overnight in March 2023 when SoftBank-era economics met pharmacy margins

The telehealth unicorn that raised $876M at $7B then got crushed by GLP-1 drug disruption

The telehealth giant paid $18.5B for Livongo then wrote down $9.7B in one year as virtual care economics collapsed

Alphabet's $1B+ life sciences moonshot cut 15% of staff and pivoted after burning a decade and billions on unrealized promises

Brazil's tech-native health insurance startup raised $28M to fix the broken private health system — and shut down in July 2023 when unit economics proved unforgiving.

Psychiatric telehealth startup that abandoned hundreds of patients mid-treatment with 10 days notice.

Tech couldn't fix the home care labor crisis that swallowed $54M

$5B employer mental health platform raised $900M — then 30% of the workforce was cut as the market recalibrated

The connected fitness mirror Lululemon acquired for $500M at the peak of COVID home fitness — then bricked in 2023 when Apple Fitness+ and Peloton commoditized the category overnight

Behavioral health integrator that couldn't bridge the gap between therapist costs and insurance rates.

Canada's online pharmacy champion collapsed under provincial drug pricing constraints.

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

The creator of the first FDA-authorised prescription video game for ADHD — went public at $1B+ via SPAC, then sold to Virtual Therapeutics for $34M a year later

A $3B mental health merger that destroyed brand value and ended with mass layoffs within 18 months.

FDA cleared the app as medicine; insurers refused to pay

The psychology-based weight loss app that COVID turbo-charged — then reality hit

A $5.7B Medicaid care startup that lost $150M+ trying to serve the patients no one else wanted.

The European digital doctor that raised $500M to conquer six countries — then closed five when the pandemic-era demand disappeared and every consultation still lost money

Going public too early turned Montreal's health app into a TSX cautionary tale.

The $500M AI-first subscription clinic that closed all its physical locations in November 2023 after burning through its capital

a16z-backed tech-enabled pharmacy raised $354M to deliver prescriptions with pharmacist support. Eight years. Could not overcome PBM reimbursement rates and delivery economics. Shut October 2023.

Brazilian digital health plan startup raised $133M from SoftBank and Ribbit Capital to replace the employer health plan—then cut 60% of its workforce in 2023 as health insurance economics defied its tech-first assumptions.

Robotic pharmacy automation met the brutal math of drug reimbursements.

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

The on-demand doctor startup that pivoted to health navigation and still couldn't find sustainable unit economics

Canada's billion-dollar health benefits unicorn got absorbed instead of going public.

NYC pharmacy delivery startup raised $300M from L Catterton—then shut down operations in March 2023 after failing to expand its tech-first pharmacy model beyond its home city.

A peer mental health app destroyed by secretly using GPT-3 to respond to 4,000 vulnerable users.

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

Brazil's COVID telehealth darling that couldn't survive the return to normal.

The tech-forward employer health benefits platform raised $280M at $1.5B and spent a decade not quite finding unit economics

The Alphabet-backed Medicaid startup that discovered VC timelines are incompatible with healthcare economics

The $1.4B healthcare transparency IPO that proved benefits platforms are worth a fraction of what Wall Street paid for them

The Medicare Advantage startup raised $1.8B and generated $900M+ in losses proving the model doesn't work at any scale

The men's hair loss telehealth brand squeezed out by generics and bigger rivals

$4B healthcare AI that hospitals quietly stopped renewing

Patient check-in tech that couldn't check its own burn rate.

ADHD telehealth startup raised $50M by offering fast online ADHD assessments and stimulant prescriptions—then DOJ and DEA investigations ended its core business model.

The $100/month subscription primary care startup raised $225M and shut down with 24 hours' notice to its patients

Three million downloads couldn't save this CBT app when its corporate parent lost interest.

A $350M Amazon health products distributor collapsed when marketplace algorithms changed overnight.

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

Great clinical outcomes couldn't survive a single Medicaid contract restructuring

The therapy app SPAC that lost 90% of value within 12 months of going public.

A billionaire's AI cancer platform that burned $400M without traction.

Mexico's AI symptom checker that COFEPRIS and a 1% conversion rate defeated.

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

The chronic kidney disease startup that saved payers money but couldn't capture any of it

Europe's most funded digital health company raised £560M to build a pan-European virtual GP—then laid off 400 people as the post-COVID telehealth contraction exposed its burn rate.

Brazil's hospital management SaaS that scaled fast and collapsed faster when its backer walked away.

Health insurance startup IPO'd at $11B. Medical loss ratio exceeded 100%. Filed Chapter 11 in 2023.

Could detect COPD from your voice. Couldn't detect a path through FDA regulations.

Google Glass in the doctor's office — $117M later, they dropped the glasses.

Mental health unicorn valued at $4.8B. DEA investigation into ADHD prescriptions. CEO resigned. Staff fled. Mission-washing doesn't survive a federal investigation.

The COVID testing darling that raised $430M from SoftBank — and shut down overnight when the pandemic ended and the FDA recalled its test

Online therapy for everyone. The pandemic made it mainstream. BetterHelp ate its lunch.

The digital mental health startup backed by Optum and General Catalyst raised 100M dollars claiming smartphone data predicted mental health crises and shut in February 2022.

Corporate wellness that couldn't pivot fast enough when offices went dark.

India's generic medicine delivery dream died without a Series B and regulatory clarity.

Paying seniors to take pills couldn't scale when payers demanded ironclad outcome data.

$330M raised to bring the hospital to seniors' homes—reimbursement math made it impossible.

$5.5B valuation. Health screens in doctor offices. Billed clients for 26,000 screens that didn't exist.

NHS-piloted voice health assistant Molly died in procurement hell after nine years.

Former Google exec Stephanie Tilenius raised $165M to provide digital health coaching for chronic disease. Shut December 2022 with 1-day notice to 200 employees. Post-COVID digital health bubble collapse.

A $700M acquisition ended in a $2.8B fire sale and 3,000 displaced workers

Brazil's clinic management SaaS that expanded into 15 states and burned to the ground.

Africa's first licensed online pharmacy collapsed when infrastructure reality contradicted the pitch deck.

The NIMH director's $160M bet that your phone screen use predicts mental health

GDPR drained the budget; Fresha drained the clients.

Three corporate giants tried to fix US healthcare and ran into each other

Ten FDA clearances, zero path to profitability — sold for a fraction of its promise.

Riding the rideshare wave for elder medical transport couldn't survive the pandemic's travel freeze.

Employee wellbeing SaaS. Acquired by Roper Technologies. Absorbed.

Ten years of personalized health intelligence that no one in the ecosystem would pay enough to sustain.

A clinic management tool that needed more management than the clinics it served.

AI diagnostics for hospitals that couldn't afford diagnostics, or AI.

Dominican telemedicine startup served wealthy insured patients while missing 4 million uninsured below.

GoodRx's $12.7B IPO made corporate pharmacy discount clones instantly obsolete.

Personalized medication packaging for seniors: clinically brilliant, economically catastrophic.

ePRO platform outgunned by enterprise giants offering the same feature for free with bigger contracts.

Romania's fragmented healthcare bureaucracy killed a promising telehealth startup.

The expert physician navigation platform merged with Doctor On Demand at distressed valuations after raising $300M

US employer-focused mental health platform raised $220M at a $1.1B valuation—then merged with Headspace at a significant writedown as clinical staffing costs proved impossible to scale profitably.

Brazil's medical booking app outmaneuvered by global incumbents with deeper pockets.

Mexican telemedicine platform with 200K users that couldn't charge anyone anything.

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

90-minute medicine promises evaporated against India's regulatory vacuum and inventory reality.

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

Telemedicine platform for Colombia. COVID arrived — but so did every other telemedicine startup.

Built for the office age—ended by a single Monday morning in March 2020.

Building elder care into the living room TV was clever but seniors never embraced it.

PE-fueled IPO turned a beloved yoga brand into a $55M bankruptcy in three years.

$500M to build a pill that talks. Nobody wanted to be listened to.

Hungary's health insurance bureaucracy refused to classify a diabetes app as medical software.

The patient portal pioneer that couldn't survive as a standalone in the era it helped create.

Mexico's gym subscription aggregator. COVID closed every gym.

Dissolved weeks before COVID made remote patient monitoring for seniors essential

Canada's physician platform built on pharma ad revenue — a foundation that regulators dissolved.

The EHR startup valued at $1.5B, sold for $100M, then fined $145M for helping Purdue Pharma promote opioids

Microsoft built a personal health records platform in 2007. Ran it for 12 years. No one used it. Shut it down.

80,000 pet owners downloaded it; fewer than 1,600 would pay for it.

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

Senior care coordination that couldn't outlast its own patient population's lifespan.

Evidence-backed chronic care chatbot that ran out of cash before health systems ran out of excuses.

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

Patient engagement innovation that waited too long for payment reform that never came.

Post-acute RPM for seniors couldn't generate enough revenue per patient to survive

Palliative care innovation absorbed by Anthem before reimbursement reform could sustain it.

They had the science. They had the data. They couldn't make the math work.

The $9B blood-testing unicorn built entirely on fabricated science — and the conviction of its founder

A 2-hour Rx delivery startup discovered pharmacy regulation moves much slower than venture capital.

Jeff Bezos-backed direct primary care network that proved the model worked but couldn't reach financial sustainability

Intel's $100M health tracker acquisition that ended with customer skin burns and a mandatory recall

The sleep science startup that built a clinically validated sleep monitor and couldn't monetise beyond the hardware sale

Jim Clark's $7.7B healthcare revolution that couldn't integrate its own acquisitions.

The Stanford AI-first primary care startup raised $27M and shut down in 2022 when it could not convince patients to trust an AI doctor for their primary care needs.

Peruvian telemedicine startup squeezed between high CAC and low willingness to pay

Digital pharmacy shut down with 4 days notice leaving 1,500+ patients without HIV medications, insulin, and psychiatric drugs

Former US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop lent his name to a $100M consumer health portal — and discovered that patients will not pay for medical information on the internet

Egyptian doctor-booking pioneer that ran out of runway as currency collapsed

The Chinese telemedicine unicorn that IPO at 6.8 billion dollars and has lost 95 percent of its value

Paraguay's mental health app for a conservative Catholic culture where therapy carries deep stigma

Ghana's health insurance claims automation startup ran out of runway before African health insurers could deploy at scale

Modern maternity care startup raised $36M to reimagine obstetric visits and shut down when it could not expand beyond two clinics.

Costa Rica's mental health app blocked by free CCSS therapy and global platforms

The startup that offered a $999 whole genome sequence could not find enough people who wanted one.

Bangalore's AI breast cancer detection startup couldn't achieve clinical adoption velocity in India's fragmented hospital market

Doctor booking platform outrun by well-funded copycats

Microbiome testing and personalized nutrition startup backed by Bill Gates that raised $87M and hit conversion walls.

Peru telehealth that went through 8 MINSA health ministers in 6 years while trying to get protocol approvals

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

Argentina healthtech that took 18 months to get ANMAT registration while the peso devalued 50% and PAMI required a track record it couldn't provide

Puerto Rico telehealth startup struck twice — by Hurricane Maria and COVID bureaucracy

The private GP platform beaten by its own NHS going digital

Peruvian electronic health records platform stalled by fragmented regulatory framework

Guatemala healthtech for a market where MSPAS uses paper records (SIGSA), IGSS has proprietary systems, and private hospitals use Epic/Meditech from the US

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

Colombia mental health tech second wave: 4 Colombian funded startups (Sana, Mindsurf, NuMind, MentalHealthCO2) competed for the same consumer and EPS markets

The online birth control subscription startup raised $32M and shut down in 2023 after the Dobbs decision changed the regulatory landscape and acquisition costs made the business unsustainable.

Indian chronic disease management app overwhelmed by PharmEasy and Practo expansion

Southeast Asian gym pass platform raised $15M from Sequoia to make fitness access affordable and shut down when gyms refused to subsidize the model.

Telemedicine for a country with 0.04 doctors per thousand people

Colombia's mental health app in a market where stigma and insurance gaps blocked adoption

The Colombian telehealth startup that grew its losses with every patient

Mexican clear dental aligner startup that tried to bring Invisalign-style treatment at affordable prices to Latin America but could not survive the direct-to-consumer orthodontics collapse.

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

Finnish-American digital mental health clinic shut down after raising $28M with reimbursement model that never scaled

Online doctor booking and telemedicine platform for North Africa

mfine built an AI-powered telemedicine platform for Indian hospitals and patients, raised 48 million dollars — and quietly shut down in 2022 as the telemedicine boom that COVID created vanished almost overnight.

Spanish home-care marketplace that underestimated the trust gap in elderly care

Venezuela's mental health platform where hyperinflation made therapist fees unpayable in any currency

Chile's mental health app blocked by FONASA reimbursement rules and outspent by global platforms

Argentina's digital mental health platform destroyed by inflation inverting therapist costs against peso reimbursements

Mexican online pharmacy disrupted by Farmacias del Ahorro's own app and COFEPRIS licensing battles

Doctor house call app raised $180M and filed for bankruptcy when insurance reimbursement could not cover physician costs

Uruguay's mental health app in a 3.5M market where FONASA and BetterHelp both already served

Honduras's mental health app for a population that couldn't afford it and a mental health system with 1 psychiatrist per 120,000 people

Ecuador's mental health app for a country with 1 mental health professional per 100,000 people

Mexico's mental health app blocked by IMSS insurance that only covered in-person therapy

Dominican Republic's mental health app for a Caribbean culture where seeking therapy carries social stigma

Bangalore's corporate wellness SaaS was squeezed between MFine and HealthifyMe's market dominance

Mexico healthtech building for a market where IMSS, ISSSTE, CIMA, and Médica Sur had already digitized before it launched

Colombia's second healthtech startup blocked by EPS exclusive telemedicine partnerships while MINSALUD habilitación certification was in process

Peru mental health tech: habilitación completed and reset 3 times across 6 presidents while EsSalud, MINSA, and private EPS built their own programs

Paraguayan clinic management software constrained by a market of 200 viable private clinics

Uruguay healthtech for a 3.5M population market where ASSE covers 45% publicly and 8 mutualistas have their own portals

French at-home beauty services marketplace raised €15M but could not achieve contribution-positive economics

Chile healthtech for a market where FONASA covers 75% of the population and the top private clinics use US Epic EMR

Chilean employee wellness unicorn backed by SoftBank that combined life insurance and wellbeing benefits and raised 250 million dollars before losing 40 percent of its workforce.

European healthtech unicorn exited Turkey as lira collapse made economics unworkable

Argentina's digital health startup sold in pesos and paid in dollars

Argentine telemedicine pioneer — built in a currency crisis, killed by the next one

Colombia dental health tech blocked by IPS habilitación for teledentistry, INVIMA Class IIa device registration, and Dentalink/Open Dental covering the 500-practice market

Peru's mental health platform that the professional psychology board required to be in-person

Bolivia's mental health app in a country where 40% poverty makes $8/month unthinkable

Built 11,000+ health kiosks in Walgreens and Rite Aid pharmacies — then wearables made in-pharmacy health screening obsolete and pharmacy chains renegotiated contracts downward

Indian gym-access subscription decimated by COVID and never fully recovered

A pediatric behavioral health startup that raised $225M and was killed by a single Medicaid policy change.

Brazilian health insurance startup raised $21M and shut down after the economics of managed care never worked at its scale.

Vietnam ClassPass clone that raised $1.8M and went bankrupt in May 2020 when COVID eliminated gym access demand and exposed its prepaid credit model as catastrophically fragile.

Dominican Republic second healthtech startup confirming SENASA, HUMANO, and MAPFRE covered all segments while MISPAS telemedicine regulations were still being drafted

Gym management SaaS for LatAm gyms hit by pandemic then by giants

Danish fitness tracking pioneer raised $40M, was acquired by Under Armour for $85M, and watched its 80 million users disappear when UA killed the app in 2021.

Barcelona's AI dental diagnostics startup couldn't penetrate Spain's fragmented dental clinic market

The Dominican healthtech that the insurance system refused to digitize with