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As legend has it, 90% of startups fail.
While the seven on this list collectively raised nearly $400 million in venture capital, these startups are only a few of the high-profile ones that ended up shuttering their doors in 2015. CB Insights has a full list of 146 startup failure post-mortems from the past few years.
Here's how they tried to change the world, and what other startup founders can learn from their demise:
SEE ALSO: The 25 hottest startups that launched in 2015
Quirky
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What was it: Launched in 2009, Quirky was an invention platform where people could vote on product ideas they loved, and the company would turn them into products, like the much-loved Pivot Power strip. It also created a subsidiary Internet of Things business called Wink, which made hubs for the smart home.
Why it closed: Many of Quirky's products had thin to non-existent margins, Business Insider's Jillian D'Onfro reported. For example, the company spent nearly $400,000 on developing a Bluetooth speaker that only sold 28 units.
Its Wink unit also faced distress, and a botched security update meant the company had to do a nationwide recall this spring of all of its smart home hubs.
The startup ran out of money and filed for bankruptcy in September. It had struggled to change its business model after several rounds of layoffs, and eventually sold its Wink smart-home business for $15 million. Its CEO had stepped down in August.
Money raised: $185 million from Andreessen Horowitz, GE, RRE Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, and Kleiner, Perkins.
Homejoy
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What was it: Homejoy offered on-demand home-cleaning services. One of the first companies into the so-called gig economy, Homejoy was a favorite of the press because it offered low-cost cleaning and was using software to automate the process of booking so it would be more efficient.
Why it closed: In an interview with Re/code, Homejoy CEO Adora Cheung blamed the worker-misclassification lawsuits the company faced. It had failed to raise enough funding to grow the company as big as they wanted, she said, so it decided to shutter its doors in July.
But Christina Farr on Backchannel pointed to poor customer retention, poor worker retention, and mounting losses as its downfall. Like Groupon, the company had struggled to entice repeat customers when it offered a cheap initial cleaning and then later raised the price.
Money raised: $40 million from Y Combinator, PayPal founder Max Levchin, First Round Capital, Redpoint Ventures, and Google Ventures.
Zirtual
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What was it: Zirtual provided on-demand virtual assistants. Instead of taking the gig economy model and using only contract workers, Zirtual differentiated itself by having full-time employees. Each assistant would work multiple accounts, depending on the workload, making it cheaper for corporate clients.
Why it closed: In August, Zirtual laid off its 400 employees in the middle of the night via an e-mail, after a last-minute Hail Mary round of funding failed to come through. CEO Maren Kate Donovan later said the "numbers were f-----" and the company had over-staffed without having matching demand.
Looking back, she told Fortune that she should have hired a full-time CFO and had a proper board for the company. Zirtual's assets were acquired in October by Fundable.
Money raised: $5.5 million, including from Jason Calacanis, Mayfield Fund, Tony Hsieh, and the VegasTechFund.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider