Asian start-ups that failed in 2015 and the lessons learned

Start-up success stories are mostly talked about. How about failed start-ups? Tech in Asia finds out

2015 was a hot year for some start-ups in Asia. Venture capital flowed into China, India and South Korea in previously unheard of amounts. Southeast Asia saw a record exit with iProperty Group’s US $534 million acquisition.

Yet raising gargantuan rounds of financing is no guarantee for future success, and it’s in the risky nature of entrepreneurship that some companies emerge as winners while others bite the dust.

Here are some that shut shop:
 

Melotic - China

Melotic was a digital assets exchange based on bitcoin. Its goal was to facilitate exchange between alternative digital currencies and various app-specific coins. Its headquarters was in Hong Kong. Melotic had just closed a $1.18 million seed round in October 2014, from investors including 500 Startups. That, however, wasn’t enough to build a product people wanted. By May 2015, the team gave up, saying it “did not experience enough growth in this product to justify the ongoing costs of development, maintenance, and support.”
 

Dazo - India

The food delivery business got hit hard in India this year. Some companies managed to attract investment and grow bigger, while many others stumbled. Among the latter is Dazo. This was reportedly India’s first app-based meal delivery service and had attracted seed investment from high-profile investors including Google and Amazon executives.
 

Abraresto / Abratable - Indonesia

Abratable and Abraresto were a restaurant booking and review site operating in Singapore and Indonesia. The start-up failed because it took a number of risky decisions, including taking on investment in the form of debt instead of venture capital. It failed to raise follow-on funding at a time when it needed it to survive.

This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.