Failed 2024

    Eko

    Interactive "choose your own adventure" video raised $160M from Hollywood studios but never found a mass audience.

    TL;DR — Failure Post-Mortem

    Eko was a Media/Interactive Video startup founded in 2010 in Israel. It raised $160M before collapsing in 2024 — 14 years of runway burned. IdeaProof's AI Failure Score: 48/100, driven by interactive video never found mass audience. The shutdown affected employees, investors, and the broader Media/Interactive Video ecosystem. This case study breaks down the timeline, root causes, competitors that won, and replicable lessons for founders validating similar ideas today.

    Why did Eko fail?

    Eko failed in 2024 after 14 years of operation, losing $160M in raised capital. The root cause was interactive video never found mass audience. Key lesson: Interactive "choose your own adventure" video raised $160M from Hollywood studios but never found a mass audience.

    Verifiable facts
    Sourced
    Founded → Closed

    2010 → 2024

    Funding Raised

    $160M

    Industry

    Media/Interactive Video

    Country

    Israel

    IdeaProof AI Failure Score

    48/100
    Market Fit Risk
    25
    Burn Rate Risk
    60
    Founder Risk
    15

    Causal Chain

    Derived · heuristic

    This is our reading of the causal chain — separated from the verifiable facts above. Timeline dates, funding numbers and filings are facts (see methodology); root / proximate / terminal attribution is judgement based on public evidence.

    Root cause

    A combination of demand-side, execution, and capital-market pressures that this record documents without isolating a single dominant driver.

    Contributing factors
    • Sector context: Media/Interactive Video in Israel, 14 years of runway.
    Terminal event

    2024: cessation of operations after failing to secure additional capital or a strategic buyer.

    Base rates

    External sources

    A single failure is an anecdote. These base rates give you the denominator — how common this outcome is across all startups matching Eko's profile. Sources are third-party; we do not restate them as our own claims.

    ~90%
    all

    of startups ultimately fail — including ~10% that fail in the first year and the rest across the following decade.

    Startup Genome / CB Insights aggregate (2024)
    ~35%
    all

    of new US employer businesses survive past their 10th year (Bureau of Labor Statistics BED series).

    US Bureau of Labor Statistics — BED (2024)
    ~35%
    stage

    of Series A rounds ever graduate to Series B; the rest run out of runway or pivot without a follow-on.

    CB Insights Venture Capital Funnel (2023)

    Full Analysis

    Eko (formerly Interlude) created interactive video technology where viewers could make choices that affected the narrative. Despite partnerships with Hollywood studios and brands, interactive video remained a niche novelty. Netflix's Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018) was the closest to mainstream success, but even that was a one-time experiment. Eko struggled to monetize and downsized significantly.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Could This Failure Have Been Prevented?

    IdeaProof's AI validates market demand, competitive positioning, and business model viability in minutes — catching the exact issues that sank Eko.

    Spotted a factual error?

    Approved corrections are published in the public changelog with attribution.

    After Eko: hubs, comparisons and deep dives

    Compare the validation, funding and go-to-market choices that separate survivors from failures like Eko.