BoxGroup — portfolio autopsies

The edtech startup that renamed itself twice and still couldn't crack university LMS procurement

Andreessen Horowitz-backed premium remote work vacation rental startup raised $20M and shut down when it could not turn beautiful cabins into a profitable business.

Microsoft acquired Sunrise for $100M for its beautiful calendar design — then shut Sunrise 12 months later and launched Outlook Mobile with the same features

From $7B direct listing darling to 90% market cap wipeout

The millennial Costco raised $500M and filed bankruptcy the same year it went public

GPT-4's legal breakthrough sold itself to the Westlaw empire for $650 million.

Sweden's food waste marketplace had the mission but Too Good To Go had the execution.

SPAC'd at $1.6B, traded down 94% as pandemic pet adoption proved a one-time spike.

Loyalty SaaS for restaurants that couldn't retain loyalty from restaurants.

The on-demand cleaning platform that couldn't keep its cleaners — or its customers.

A $53M-funded event marketing platform absorbed into a competitor after COVID broke the market.

DTC eyewear pioneer that went public at $6B — then discovered retail stores cost as much as the old retail model

Luxury retail's favorite clienteling app got absorbed by Stripe and quietly disappeared.

Australia's DTC mattress and furniture brand. Post-COVID furniture demand collapsed.

The 3D spatial data platform that SPAC'd at $2.9B in 2021 and saw 90% of shareholder value evaporate by 2023

Twitter's first creator bet, quietly killed six years after the $30M acquisition.

The FTC blocked Harry's $1.37B acquisition by Edgewell — forcing the brand to compete alone at a scale it wasn't built for

Microlearning pioneer acquired for cents on the dollar after failing to expand beyond compliance.

Sidewalk robot startup absorbed by Nuro before reaching commercial scale.

Shopping inside Instagram. Instagram built it themselves.

Built a prettier job board for hourly workers and forgot to build a business model.

Adventures for everyone — but the startup itself couldn't find its footing.

Invented the short video format. Never monetized it. TikTok inherited the creators.

Invented the short video format — then watched TikTok harvest the category it created.

The atomic news app that broke stories into digestible facts — shut down when social media made that a feature, not a business

Boxee built the software that connected TVs to internet content before Roku and Apple TV did. Samsung acquired it. Then abandoned it.

The design flash-sale unicorn that raised $336M, grew to 2,000 employees in 18 months — and sold the whole thing for $15M

Design flash-sale site pivoted four times and ran out of identity

Branch was invite-only public conversations between thought leaders. Facebook acquired it. Shut it down within months.