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Netscape

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Based in
Mountain View, California, United States
E-Commerce, Marketing, News, Software
B2B
Developed enterprise software solutions
Acquired
-

Dates

Launch
4 April 1994
Closure
1 January 2008
Duration (months)
13 years, 8 months

Failure

Reason
Despite its early success, Netscape had no real chance to beat Microsoft who released IE 1.0 soon after Netscape and continued on improve on it until they finally took over Netscape and were able to offer a consistently better product than their counterpart. Netscape eventually becomes obsolete for the most part but was, however, acquired by AOL in November 1998 for $4.2 billion. After the hire, the company tried again to release upgraded versions of the browser but the battle seemed to have already been won by Microsoft. Netscape finally decided to outsource their code which would later give rise to Firefox. AOL finally shut down Netscape in 2008.
Submitted Failure Story
Failure categories
Poor Product

Founders and team

Investment

Number of investors
1
Investors
Hearst Ventures
Accelerator program
-
Acquisition status
Acquired by AOL for undisclosed amount
Acquisition date
28 November 1998
Employee count
5001-10000
Founders
James Clark, Jon Mittelhauser, Marc Andreessen
Founders Twitter 

Funding

Total funding
$21,600,000
Number of funding rounds
2
Funding round(s) amount(s)
Series C - $10,600,000, Series B -$20,000,000
Last funding 
$21,600,000
Last funding date
11 June 2014
Last funding type
Series B
Funding Status
M&A

Online

LinkedIn
Twitter
Website
Public synopsis
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