#We’re Not Even Sure These “Failed Startup Toys” Are Legal – Review Geek

For every startup that becomes successful, there are several that just didn’t end up making the cut. Sometimes some of those products are worth remembering, which is why unique art collective MSCHF is releasing five Dead Startup vinyl figurine toys, so you’ll still have a chance to own them forever.

The collection includes five curious items. First up is the Juicero, an $800 IoT juicer that raised $120 million in funding and lived from 2016-2017. Second, there’s One Laptop Per Child, a mini-laptop that was hoping to revolutionize education but only lasted seven years, from 2007-2014. Third is the Theranos Minilab, a so-called portable medical lab that “could” perform a variety of tests that was later federally investigated; not shockingly, it didn’t last long—just two years, from 2016-2018, but it did manage to garner $724 million in funding.

Don’t forget the Jibo, a thousand-dollar “social robot” with an expressive face and no other real function. Jibo lasted from 2017 to 2019, and raised $73 million in funding. Last (but certainly not least) is the Coolest Cooler, an unspeakably over-spec’d cooler slash speaker slash blender that just … didn’t. While it did manage to last five whole years, it only netted a mild $14 mil in funding.

Want to own all of them? No problem. MSCHF will sell you the entire cursed collection for $159.99. Given that each of these “toys” cost $40 each for some reason, nobody comes out a winner here, but you can definitely be cooler than your friends if you buy the whole bundle.

I don’t know what anyone would do with these figurines once they bought them, though. And, as you’d expect from MSCHF, we have no idea if the toys were created legally; some may certainly still have legal entities attached. But that’s MSCHF—a chaotic blend of chaos and curiosity. Buy the toys up before it’s too late, I guess.

via TechCrunch