20 Indian Startups That Shut Down

It’s the age of insane confidence and risk-taking tendencies. And by that, I mean delving into the field of business. Referred to as startups in the premature stage. Everyone wants to found’ a startup today. Unfortunately, not everyone is successful. Here is a list of twenty Indian startups that shut down, and the reasons behind their failure.

Even unique startups in India, that have a good business model could not suffice as the funding failed up till 2021. So what's the reason behind this? We are going to check out the list of Indian startups shut down for various different reasons. So one can learn from past examples before heading towards posterity. Below here is the list of Indian companies that shut down in India till 2021.

Indian Startups That Shut Down
COINSECURE
CONTENTMART
EBAY
EZYTRUK
HOLACHEF
JUSTBUYLIVE
MONKEYBOX
MR.NEEDS
OFO
SHOTANG
STAYZILLA
TASKBOB
TAPZO
TAZZO
WYDR
YUMIST
ZEBPAY

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Indian Startups That Shut Down

BABYBERRY

One of the first failed startups in 2018 is Babyberry which is a parenting app and forum dedicated to helping new parents with the care and development of their newborn babies in all aspects, such as physical, mental, and emotional. The founders shut down the company citing that they would reopen after they had solved the technical glitches as reported by customers. Around $1 million was invested.

COINSECURE

Another failed startup in India is Coinsecure one of the fastest and largest online bitcoin exchange platform in India. The company aimed to make their company by building a reputation for integrity and educating Indians about blockchain and bitcoin. Unfortunately, a hack in April 2018 led to the theft of BTC 438 amounting to $3.3 million leading to it being one of the shut down companies in India . Bankruptcy looms in the background unless the company recovers the money.

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CONTENTMART

Contentmart was founded to provide a platform for content writers to put their skills to use. The nature of jobs was not restricted to blogging; any content related job was put up on the platform. They extinguished revenues ( which is the third reason behind the failure of startups) and also lacked a business model, which led to their shutting down in August 2018.

EBAY

Ebay which is a popular online e-commerce platform that connects buyers and sellers. Their auction business model allows buyers to place bids. Although popular in the US, they faced heavy competition from Amazon and Flipkart. Also, the auction model wasn’t a welcome one leading to it becoming an unsuccessful startup in India. This led to their acquisition by Flipkart in 2018.

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EZYTRUK

Ezytruk is a truck and logistics platform, aimed to connect manufacturers and transportation services, comparing service rates and charges as possible. The seed funding round raised almost one crore, but as the founders were unable to raise funds in subsequent rounds, making them incapable of scaling, leading to their shutdown in 2018.

HOLACHEF

Holachef a famous failed startup in India, was a platform that connected chefs and customers in the city. According to menu specials, the company oversaw the preparation, packaging, and delivery of food. The arrival of Swiggy, Zomato, and FoodPanda led to a loss of interest from the investors’ side and a subsequent cash crunch.

JUSTBUYLIVE

JustBuyLive was founded with the aim of connecting retailers directly with brands. The retailers owned small and medium enterprises. What lead to the company getting closed is that it offered working capital to the retailers to get started. Even with massive funding of 700 crores, their faulty business model and negative cash flow contributed to their failure.

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MONKEYBOX

MonkeyBox was a lunch delivery service that provided vegetarian meals to school students. Their customer lists boast of nearly eighty-five schools and over 1500 students. Crossing two thousand subscribers, acquiring other food businesses were milestones. The reason for the shutdown is unclear, although the company cited ‘ being unable to achieve targets’ as the reason. They are one of companies that shut down in India but are however working on strategy and are hoping to resume services in the future.

MR.NEEDS

Mr.Needs is a grocery delivery service. It works on an online subscription model. It delivered around thirty-six thousand orders monthly. A founder declared that their delivery charges were at least half comparatively. Again, the reason for failure is unclear, but fierce competition in the field from BigBasket and others may have been the reason for their shutting down.

OFO

OFO is a China-based bike rental company backed by the Alibaba group which launched its service in India. Despite the availability of huge market potential in India, the company withdrew its services in 2018. The reason given was that the growth rate of the company did not match that of other countries, and hence resources could be better spent elsewhere.

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SHOTANG

Shotang had a middlemen business model. It connected manufacturers, retailers, and distributors. As middlemen, commissions were its revenue. Unfortunately, fierce competition from Flipkart and amazon forced the company to shut down.

STAYZILLA

This unsuccessful startup in India, Stayzilla was started out of the founders’ passion for traveling. They created a travel platform for travelers to stay in homestays and collaborated with almost 55000 properties. The reason they failed was that they burned cash in trying to create demand. Although they showed a remarkable growth rate, their aim to scale and rebrand resulted in high capital investments which did not match revenues earned.

TASKBOB

Taskbob was a startup that aimed to provide home services to customers. The services can be anything- beauty to home repairs. While the idea was great and achieved targets, it was neither scalable nor profitable. A rise in margins saw a fall in the number of customers. Ultimately, they had to shutdown company in India.

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TAPZO

Tapzo was an app aggregator- it brought together apps across all categories under a single roof. Despite having a huge user base- around fourteen thousand users, regular subscriptions, and solid investments, the startup was valued nearly at half the value of the previous round of investments. This led to the acquisition of Tapzo by Amazon Pay.

TAZZO

Tazzo is a bike rental company similar to the startup OFO discussed above. The startup’s app came with live GPS tracking and they charged around INR 5/km. A lack of funding in subsequent rounds owing to a lack of profitability led to its shutting down in two years.

WYDR

Wydr was an e-commerce platform selling a range of products to a range of buyers. They boasted of almost ten thousand manufacturers. Customization and price negotiation were key advantages. The investors consciously scaled-down the startup for three months before shutting it down and did not declare any reason for doing so. We can speculate that competition might have been a reason.

YUMIST

The startup founded by a former Zomato official and a restauranteur served home-cooked food at affordable prices. Lack of funding was the main reason behind their failure.

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ZEBPAY

Zebpay is another cryptocurrency exchange platform. At its peak, it has almost three million subscribers. A policy issued by the Reserve Bank of India, restricting payment companies to extend cryptocurrency services and a subsequent redressal hearing fixed after a year, left the cryptocurrency trading policies in limbo. Amidst the uncertain environment, the company decided to shut down.

Any entrepreneur knows that there is an element of risk involved with startups. The solid funding round does not guarantee continuous funding. The market is ever fluctuating. It is important to give your one hundred percent to every startup you work in or found because it is a learning process. Taking risks and exploring the unknowns will give you a world of exposure rather than sticking to your comfort zone for the sake of success.

Doodhwala

Doodhwala is a recently shut down company (2019) which was based in benagluru as a milk delivery. The startup worked on a subscription based model and offered various groceries products across categories. Doodhwala has raised over $4 million across multiple rounds from investors like Mumbai based VC firm Omnivore Partners. In October 2019, it was reported that Doodhwala had halted its delivery operations across three operational cities.

DocTalk

Another Mumbai based Healthtech startup DocTalk and enabled the patients to connect with doctors while also allowing to share medical reports and obtain prescriptions through its mobile app. According to media reports, this well funded healthcare startups failed to pivot its business model and could not achieve the acceleration it needed.

Frequently Asked Questions - FAQS

Which are the failed startups till 2020?

The unsuccessful companies before 2020 are

• Babyberry
• Wydr
• Tazzo
• Tapzo
• Shotang
• OFO
• Mr needs
• Monkeybox

What are the Indian Companies that failed?

The closed startups in India that failed are

• Justbuylive
• Holachef
• Ezitruck
• Ebay
• Contentmark
• Coinsecure

What are the recently shutdown companies?

The list of companies that shut down in India are

• DocTalk
• Doodhwala
• Zebpay
• Yumist
• Taskbob
• Stayzilla