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Acquired and Expired: Inside India's Most Notorious Startup Failures
- Snapdeal's acquisition of Freecharge in 2015 proved to be a strategic mistake, leading to cash burn from Freecharge due to Snapdeal's miscalculated user demographics and its over-reliance on marketing and promotional offers.
- BYJU's acquisition of WhiteHat Jr in 2020 exposed the pitfalls of acquiring companies during temporary booms while underestimating the risks of high customer acquisition and poor financial models.
- Zomato's $50 million acquisition of UrbanSpoon in 2015 failed as Zomato failed to adequately address emerging competition and shifted its focus to food delivery rather than expanding its restaurant discovery services globally.
- Ola's bid to capture India's food delivery market through its acquisition of Foodpanda India in 2017 and subsequent investment of INR 400 crores failed due to intense competition from established players Swiggy and Zomato, escalating delivery costs, and fierce price wars.
- Quikr's 2015 acquisition of CommonFloor, one of India's largest online real estate mergers, highlights the complexities of integrating specialised services into generalised platforms and the need to understand user expectations and retain key leadership and operational expertise.
- These acquisitions show the importance of understanding target user compatibility, operational sustainability and scalability in mergers and acquisitions, evaluating competitive dynamics and resource allocation when venturing into new business verticals and highlighting the dangers of mundanely hasty and unfocused diversification.
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