On one hand, some startups are busy raising money, on the other hand, funded startups are moving towards closure. What Mistake they Would Make? How to Correct it? Learn From Mistakes, would be extremely beneficial to you. Here are Some 10 leading Indian startups that shut down in 2016.
1. Fashionara
1. Based in Banglore, Fahionara was India’s largest online fashion apparel and lifestyle store was founded in the year of 2012 which was founded by former Reliance Trends CEO “Arun Sirdeshmukh” and “Munjal”, a former CTO of Times Internet Ltd.
2. The company’s net sales jumped five-fold to INR 32.86 Cr. in the financial year 2014-15. But its net loss widened to INR 32.13 Cr. from INR 21.11 Cr. in 2013-14.
3. The company secured $7-8 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Helion Venture Partners. The reason behind the shutdown of Fashionara is, that to retain and allure its customers the company began to provide huge discounts which caused it a great loss.
2. AskmeBazaar
1. India’s emerging Online Shopping portal that allows consumers to choose from various sellers offering a wide variety of Fashion and Lifestyle products. it was launched in 2012.
2. Founded by Kiran Murthi, Founder & C.E.O in the Year 2012 Rough estimates suggest the dues could be in the range of Rs 100 crore – Rs 150 crore.
3. Owing to a funding crunch, AskmeBazaar suspended operations in the past few months, which has affected scores of vendors along with almost 4,000 employees who are also alleging non-payment of salaries.
3. FranklyMe
1. Based in Delhi, FranklyMe was India’s first video microblogging social networking platform founded by Ex-InnoxApps founder, Nikunj Jain and Ex-Zumbl founder, Abhishek Gupta.
2. The startup received seed funding of $600,000 from Matrix Partners in 2015. But in November 2015, FranklyMe laid off close to 30 employees as the company pivoted its business model. The startups are still on shaky grounds when it comes to human resources. 2015 saw the downsizing of various startups including Zomato, Spoonjoy, Ola, Vizury, and Housing.com, among others
3. Franklyme was founded in the year 2014 with $600k by Matrix Partners. In Feb 2016, it failed to capture the market attention and shut down all its operations.
4. Amber wellness
Amber Wellness, an online beauty services startup founded by Abhimanyu Dhamija, former Co-founder of Housing.com & fellow IITian Saurabh Goel in 2015
- It raised $1 million in funding from undisclosed angel investors. It shut down its operation in May 2016 as it failed to capture the market and gain profits.
5. Zeppery
1. Delhi-based startup Inweone Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs Zeppery, is now working on a micro-delivery logistics business and is building a new team. It was founded by Lalit Vijay & Utkarsh Srivastava in the year 2015 and was funded with $77k by Suyash Sharma.
2. All seven employees of Zeppery have quit and the firm will be hiring a fresh team for its new business. Co-founder Lalit Vijay has also exited the company.
6. PepperTap
1. Gurgaon-based PepperTap became India’s 3rd largest online grocery delivery service in 2013. Founded by Navneet Singh, PapperTap had raised over $51 million from Sequoia Capital, SAIF Partners, and Snapdeal.
2. Initially, the company saw rapid growth and progress but later on the massive expansion of the network made the infrastructure collapse as it couldn’t maintain the service quality and profit equilibrium.
7. TinyOwl
2. Issues include the high cost of logistics and an oversaturated market in which more than 400 restaurant delivery startups have been founded in India over the last three years, raising a total of $120 million in funding.
3. From September 2015 to January 2016, in four months, the company fired 600 employees and 10 heads of departments. By the end of 2015, they had also shut down their call center in Bengaluru.
8. Zupermeal
1. Mumbai-based food delivery startup ZuperMeal has apparently closed down its operations eight months after it raised seed funding. The ZuperMeal app, when downloaded, is showing an error message. The website of the firm is also not working.
2. ZuperMeal had received $2 million (about Rs13 crore) in seed funding from celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor, Saxena, and two unnamed foreign investors on October 2
3. Mobile app Zeppery which allowed users to pre-order food at restaurants and other food outlets also closed down operations in May.
9. Purple Squirrel
1. Purple Squirrel was incubated at IIT (Indian Institute of Technology)-Bombay in September 2013. It was founded by Aditya Gandhi and Sahiba Dhandhania.
2. The company managed to make Rs 3 crore in the March quarter of 2015. “The margins were really good. Almost 20 percent,” said the ex-employee. Encouraged by this, Matrix decided to invest Rs 12 crore in April. Sources said Purple Squirrel was under pressure to achieve a target of Rs 30 crore by 2015-16.
3. in December, the founders called a meeting to brainstorm. The industrial visit season was now ending. Cash flow had slowed to a trickle. In January, it got a bridge round of about Rs 2 crore from its investors. The layoffs came and the founders got on a path to sell the company.
10. AUTOnCAB
1. AUTOnCAB, operated by New Delhi-based NGA Technologies Pvt. Ltd laid off 40 employees in the process. The company was running operations in six cities—Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Kota, Chandigarh, and Jaipur.
2. India is one of the largest markets for the US-based Uber Technologies Inc, which last year set aside an investment of $1 billion for the country. Ola, run by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, raised $500 million late last year, taking the total amount of money it has secured from investors such as Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp and Tiger Global to $1.3 billion.
3. Autorickshaw-hailing app AUTOnCAB has shut down its operations as it couldn’t sustain its business due to stiff competition from its heavily funded rivals, its co-founder, and its CEO.
