Indian start-ups that crashed in 2017
What's the story
A recent study, titled "Entrepreneurial India" by the IBM Institute for Business Value and Oxford Economics, showed that 90% of Indian start-ups fail within the first five years. The Indian start-up honeymoon is almost over now and it's time to check which start-ups managed to survive the reality check. Here are some of the start-ups that went out of business this year, as of now.
Home services
Taskbob shuts down operations
Mumbai-based home services start-up Taskbob ended its operations in January. It was founded in 2015 by Aseem Khare, Abhiroop Medhekar, Ajay Bhatt and Amit Chahalia, and had raised $5.7 million in funding. Its Facebook page said, "Due to unforeseen circumstances, Taskbob will be shutting down its operations as of 19th January. All the orders already placed in the system will be duly processed."
Online hotels
Stayzilla fizzles out
Founded in 2005, Stayzilla was an online hotel aggregator. It had managed to garner $33.5 million in funding and was backed by investors, such as Matrix Partners and Nexus Venture Partners. Founder Yogendra Vasupal decided to shut it down in February, saying that the travel marketplace didn't have local network effects and that the start-up was not being able to expand in a cost-effective manner.
B2B
Turant Delivery faces cash crunch, calls it quits
Delhi-based hyperlocal logistics start-up Turant Delivery, co-founded by ISB alumni Satish Gupta, Ankur Majumder and Siddharth Arora in 2015, decided to call it quits in May after facing a cash crunch and failure to raise funds. One of its founders told VCCircle, "We didn't want to burn money blindly. The B2B model demanded heavy working capital and that sort of kept the VCs away."
Payments
Splitkart shuts shop, app and website nonoperational
Gurugram-based Splitkart, founded in 2015 by Sharique Khan and Monojeet Sinha, allowed users to split their restaurant bills through a mobile wallet. It also acted as a platform for discovering deals from nearby food joints and had social media sharing options. It halted operations in June. Splitkart's app is no longer available in Android or iOS app stores, neither is its website operational anymore.
Food delivery
Eatonomist closes, co-founder moves to UberEATS
Gurugram-based food delivery start-up Eatonomist, which raised an undisclosed amount in seed investment from MCube Capital Advisors Pvt. Ltd in 2016, has also reportedly closed shop. One of its co-founders, Anisha Dhar, is now a part of UberEATS, according to her LinkedIn profile. Its website is now defunct. The last social media update by the company was on September 9, 2016.