Dootchi's unfiltered-AI bet: 4.2M downloads in 3 months, then App Store delisting
Beijing-built AI companion pitches itself as Emochi's unrestricted alternative; ~4.2M Play downloads by 2026-04-20, US #8, then App Store removal
Fall lesenstartups.centerEIN CASESTUDIES.CHAT-ARCHIV
Jedes Unternehmen
fängt irgendwo an.
Wie Unternehmen entstanden, Fuß fassten und den nächsten Herausforderungen begegneten.
Das gesamte Archiv in der AppArtikel gibt es auf Englisch und vereinfachtem Chinesisch. Titel und Texte bleiben in ihrer veröffentlichten Sprache.
Veröffentlichte Fälle
2,072 VERÖFFENTLICHTE FÄLLE · REGELMÄSSIG AKTUALISIERTScope's AI-inspection bet: EF-born London startup raises $20M led by Index Ventures
EF-founded Scope bets AI workflows, not inspector replacement, fix TIC's manual reporting; $20M led by Index Ventures, 9x ARR growth.
Fall lesenMonarch Tractor: autonomous EV-tractor bet ends in 2026 shutdown, Caterpillar buys tech
Monarch raised $251M to build 'driver optional' electric tractors, shipped ~500 units, then shut down in April 2026 and sold its tech to Caterpillar.
Fall lesenDualShot Recorder: a squirrel creator's vibe-coded app hits #1 paid App Store in 12h
LA squirrel-video creator Derrick Downey Jr. built DualShot Recorder with Claude in 3-4 months; it hit #1 on the paid App Store in 12 hours and held it 8 days.
Fall lesenWorld Labs bets 3D 'spatial intelligence' is AI's next platform with Marble
World Labs ships Marble, its first commercial world model — image or text to editable 3D worlds — then raises $1B with Autodesk, AMD and Nvidia.
Fall lesenJack & Jill bets two AI hiring agents replace job boards; $20M seed, 49k candidates
London startup pairs a candidate agent (Jack) with an employer agent (Jill), taking 10% only on successful hires; $20M Creandum-led seed.
Fall lesenbeehiiv's 0%-cut newsletter bet: Morning Brew alumni near $50M revenue
Ex-Morning Brew team founded beehiiv in 2021 betting independent newsletters beat social feeds; ~$46.5M raised, 40K+ MAUs, ~$50M 2026 revenue forecast.
Fall lesenFast's $124M one-click checkout bet died in April 2022 after a $102M Stripe-led round
Fast bet one universal login could make checkout one click everywhere; $124M raised, ~$600K 2021 revenue, shut down April 2022, engineers hired by Affirm.
Fall lesenBot Company bets LLMs can teach a home robot chores; $150M at $2B, then an Airbnb lawsuit
Ex-Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt's The Bot Company raised $150M at a $2B valuation to build an LLM-trained home robot, then faced a lawsuit over secret Airbnb tests.
Fall lesenAplazo bets in-store BNPL becomes Mexico's default payment; 15k merchants, Walmart
Aplazo digitizes Mexico's installment habit for the 89% without credit cards: 15,000 merchants, $223M online volume, Walmart exclusivity
Fall lesenStatus AI's $17M bet: AI role-play, not feeds, is the next social network
NYC nine-person startup where users live inside AI-generated worlds hit 1M users in 19 days and 13M worlds, then raised $17M from top VCs.
Fall lesenNova Fusion bets compact FRC fusion beats tokamaks for AI power; ¥2.4B in 16 months
Shanghai startup Nova Fusion raised ¥2.4B across three rounds in 16 months betting FRC-SMR small modular fusion can power AI data centers before tokamaks can.
Fall lesenGeuneullo bets shade-routing wins Korea's heat: solo student app hits App Store #1
Solo SNU student built an app that routes walkers through shade; 20,000 signups in one day, then Korea's #1 free app as heat peaked in August 2026.
Fall lesenTarsi bets paid-upfront beats freemium; #1 PH App Store in 48h, $20K month one
Solo Filipino dev's $4.99 offline-first budget app tops Philippine App Store paid+finance charts in 48 hours and makes ~$20K in month one
Fall lesenAtum Works bets 3D nanolithography, not shrinking, extends the chip roadmap
Atum Works bets 3D-printing chips at wafer scale with 100nm resolution beats stacking 2D layers; YC Spring 2025, TechCrunch's 'next Nvidia' pick.
Fall lesenVector Legal bets an AI-native law firm makes startup legal work affordable
AI-native law firm plus software: founders self-serve formation and filings, senior lawyers step in for big rounds; $5.19M seed from Base 10 and YC.
Fall lesenRoboDock bets depots, not cars, are autonomy's bottleneck; retrofit robots for AV fleets
YC W26 startup's robot arms plug in chargers and run inspections at EV/AV depots, no rebuild; Forbes W26 pick; ~$900k/yr labor per depot.
Fall leseniLovePDF: no-investor PDF tool hits €20M+ revenue, among world's 50 most-visited sites
Marco Grossi started a PDF utility as a personal fix in 2010; by 2024 it did €20M+ revenue with no investors and 850M users a year.
Fall lesenAparta bets home co-ownership unlocks housing; TechCrunch SB200 nod, four Nordic markets
Norwegian Aparta (ex-HILI) builds Europe's first regulated home co-ownership platform; TechCrunch SB200 2026, four Nordic markets
Fall lesenOutbid.lol bets companies pay to top a public leaderboard; $120K bids in 48h
A German indie dev built a one-field pay-to-rank board in 3 hours; within 48 hours it drew 1M+ visitors, $120K in bids and dozens of clones.
Fall lesen