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Welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week noteworthy startups and venture capital news.
Before I jump into today topic, let catch up a bit.
Last week, I wrote about the defining moments of VC in 2019.
Before that, I noted some thoughts on U.S.
VC activity in Europe.
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2019 lost startups Startups perish for many reasons but there one constant: this is an incredibly difficult business.
Launching a successful company isn&t just a matter of drive and finding the right people (though both, clearly, are important).
Doing well in this business requires the stars to align perfectly on a billion different things. A cursory look at this year batch of companies doesn&t find any story quite as spectacular as last year big Theranos flameout, which gave us a best-selling book, documentary, podcast series and upcoming Adam McKay/Jennifer Lawrence film.
Some, like MoviePass, however, may have come close. And for every Theranos, there are dozens of stories of hardworking founders with promising products that simply couldn&t make it to the finish line.
There also room for debate about what is and isn&t a startup.
For our purposes, we&re focusing here on independent startups, not digital initiatives from larger companies — though in at least one case, the startup was acquired by a larger company before shutting down. So without further ado, here are some of the biggest and most fascinating startups that closed up shop in 2019.
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