Startup Failures in 2014

Supreme Court killed the antenna startup the broadcast networks feared

A private messaging app for couples — acquired and shut down within months.

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

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

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

Branch was invite-only public conversations between thought leaders. Facebook acquired it. Shut it down within months.

An AI-powered travel planning app for iPad that suggested personalized destinations, hotels, and restaurants based on user preferences.

The crowdfunded privacy-first social network — a beautiful idea that the mainstream never adopted.

Dinnr was a consumer food/dining related startup.

Justin Kan's Y Combinator errand startup — outpaced by TaskRabbit before reaching critical mass.

Justin.tv was a live streaming platform that allowed regular people to broadcast video content, initially popular for sports and gaming streams before evolving into the gaming-focused Twitch platform.

A live video broadcasting platform that allowed anyone to stream user-generated content online.

The $14 billion email marketing pioneer that acquired itself into irrelevance

Vinod Khosla's cellulosic biofuel company that promised to convert wood chips into gasoline — Mississippi State invested $75M and sued for fraud when production never materialised

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

Human-curated search results — Google's Panda algorithm update killed it in one update.

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.

The exchange that handled 70% of all Bitcoin transactions — and lost 850,000 BTC to hackers while the CEO claimed everything was fine

Europe's music video platform raised €10 million before YouTube and Vevo made it redundant

The Dark Age of Camelot studio was shut by EA in 2014 after Warhammer Online's subscriber base collapsed from 800K to under 100K in eighteen months.

OpTier was a cloud-based enterprise software platform that provided application performance management and business transaction monitoring for large-scale operations.

Google's social network — dominant in Brazil and India, invisible in the US, killed by Facebook.

Announced free legal music at Sundance 2008 with deals that didn't exist

Readmill built the most beautiful e-reader app with social highlighting. Dropbox acquired it in March. Shut it down in July.

Won Apple Design Award for beautiful social reading — but Kindle, iBooks, and Google Books owned ebook distribution; Readmill couldn't acquire books through its app

$299, 24-hour battery, required a Samsung phone — returned by 30% of buyers.

An ERP platform providing school management solutions to help Indian schools improve child development and reduce administrative costs.

ERP platform providing management solutions to help Indian schools improve child development and reduce administrative costs.

Pioneered in-store mobile rewards, only to discover walking in isn't the same as buying.

Google paid $39M for AI music curation based on activity and mood — then shut Songza 6 months after acquisition and integrated the technology into Google Play Music

Sony launched e-readers a year before Kindle — then Amazon built the bookstore Sony forgot to build.

Formspring rebranded as Spring.me after cyberbullying killed the original — the same anonymous Q&A product with a new name had identical harassment problems and shut 12 months later

The note-taking app that Evernote killed without even noticing

Shoppable photos before Pinterest Shopping — the right idea with no platform to live on

Spain's classifieds search engine. Acquired by Japan. Dismantled.

The 'Instagram for video' hit 40 million users in 8 weeks. Then Instagram added video.

Brazil's Zynga — until Zynga sued them for being too similar