Many companies fail because they take on investment and then have to grow into their valuation. The fast growth creates enormous inefficiencies inside the company, because management and tech cannot keep up. This often mans that the company eventually has to shut down.
On more than one occasion I've worked in places where we were asked to be at our tidied up desks because VCs were about to be paraded through the office.
Every time there were more of us. Basically, "look at how we are burning through your money by hiring all these people. Growth!"
Now, the actual growth, daily active users and all, that is an area of rampant fraud, but VCs seem to be OK with it until the company runs out of runway. THEN it's a total scandal, even though all they need to do is pop the hood for 5 minutes to see how the numbers are arrived at.
