CRV — portfolio autopsies

Computational photography AI hardware startup raised $121M for a revolutionary multi-lens camera that never found a mass market.

The Israeli endpoint security unicorn that SoftBank backed with 900 million dollars and could not dislodge CrowdStrike

SoftBank-backed endpoint security unicorn raised 900 million dollars but could not convert deep-pocketed investor support into sustainable enterprise market share before running out of options.

Discount marketplace IPO'd at $14B then sold for $173M three years later

Amazon for the price-sensitive: $1 items shipped free, no questions asked

Creator economy platform hit $4B valuation — then laid off twice, cut valuation by half, and watched Substack steal the newsletter writers

The cybersecurity unicorn backed by SoftBank and Google that raised $900M and then laid off half its workforce when the Broadcom acquisition fell through

Sebastian Thrun's $1B EdTech unicorn — built on self-driving cars, nanodegrees, and 12 million learners — collapsed through four rounds of layoffs and sold to Accenture for a fraction of its peak value

The $17B customer service platform that tried to buy SurveyMonkey for $4.1B, got blocked by shareholders, and ended up going private at a $6.8B discount to its peak

The world's first social robot for the home — a $900 rotating companion with a face and feelings, rendered irrelevant by a $99 Amazon Echo.

The cobot pioneer whose friendly robot face couldn't mask insufficient manufacturing precision.

The invisible backbone of 7 million smart homes, commoditized and absorbed by its own partners.

The enterprise social network that won the market, sold to Microsoft — and got integrated too slowly to survive Slack.

Kickstarter record. Pioneered the smartwatch. Apple Watch launched. Sold to Fitbit for $40M in 2016.

The music link unifier that couldn't find its own beat

The GitHub for engineers, acquired before it could go it alone

Turned digital photos into real postcards — but couldn't turn novelty into loyalty.

A rainbow of passion, painted over by a corporate giant.

Raph Koster's virtual world vision that arrived just as social gaming ate the market.

A content delivery SaaS that never found its signal in the noise

Bridged Skype to mobile — until Skype bought and buried it

A social gaming studio crushed by Zynga's shadow.

Medical imaging ambitions grounded by market reality