Silicon Valley Bank — portfolio autopsies

The design platform that Figma made obsolete

The customer success category creator that couldn't create enough exit value

America's leading electric bus maker — backed by Amazon, Daimler, and the Biden administration — bankrupt in August 2023 when component shortages and fixed-price contracts created an unsurvivable cost squeeze.

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

Building elder care into the living room TV was clever but seniors never embraced it.

$500M to build a pill that talks. Nobody wanted to be listened to.

Built for Twitter's golden age, died when Instagram and TikTok took over.

The adaptive learning giant that raised $105M promising AI-powered personalisation and sold for $25M

The $1B Hadoop unicorn that the cloud giants made obsolete before it could go public

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

The peer-to-peer used car marketplace that burned $150 million and never solved operations

The $60M education tablet that tried to replace the college backpack and found the iPad had already won

Kevin Rose raised $45M for social news and declined a $200M Google offer. Digg v4 redesign in 2010 destroyed the community overnight. Users fled to Reddit. Sold for approximately $500K in 2012.

Raised $41M before anyone used the product. Launched to near-universal confusion. Acquired by Apple for ~$7M. Returned 1 cent on the dollar.