There are still a couple of months left in the year, but 2022 has already seen its fair share of startups around the Bay Area that have stumbled and shutdown or filed for bankruptcy.
At least two dozen startups stopped operating, including one that subsequently announced it was "transitioning to standby-mode" after laying off all of its employees.
Menlo Park-based SummerBio launched just a couple of months after the Bay Area went under shelter-in-place orders in 2020. The company developed an automated Covid-19 testing protocol that it claimed could process up to 110,000 tests daily, but with waning demand, SummerBio laid off its entire workforce in June and prepared to close its laboratory. A month later, the company announced it was placing its equipment in storage for future use.
Bay Area and Fresno-based Zero Grocery abruptly shut down in March about one month after announcing a $12 million seed round. The startup was building a same-day grocery delivery service that prioritized reducing plastic waste and having good labor practices.
"The customer interest was massive and growth was huge for us over these last few years," founder Zuleyka Strasner said at the time, "but ultimately we could not sustain and fundraising was our big obstacle... My hope is that the investment community continues to invest in more products, services and a broad array of founders from diverse backgrounds who are at the cutting edge of creating a cleaner, better planet."
Scroll through the slideshow above to learn more about the Bay Area's biggest startup fails this year.