Insights
What 194 failures have in common.
Patterns drawn straight from the archive — every number below is computed from the sourced data, not estimated.
- $58.96B
- Capital raised, then lost
- 9.7 yrs
- Average lifespan
- 194
- Companies documented
- Ran out of funding
- Most common cause
Observation 1
55% of these failures simply ran out of money — more than any other single cause.
Observation 2
Startups founded since 2015 lasted about 5.2 years on average — less than half the 13.5 years of those founded earlier.
Observation 3
The shortest lives lasted as little as 0 years; the longest — Thomas Cook — ran 178 years before collapsing in 2019.
Further reading
Why Startups Fail: Real Patterns from Nearly 200 Documented Companies
The story behind the numbers — what nearly 200 sourced failures have in common.
Why startups fail
Share by primary cause
- Ran out of funding55%
- Overexpansion17%
- Competitive pressure12%
- Fraud8%
- No product-market fit5%
- Other4%
Failures over time
2000–2026, by closure year
Peak year: 2024 with 41 closures.
Where the most capital was lost
Total raised, by industry (top 10)
The biggest collapses
Top 10 by capital raised