Glassjar
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Glassjar was a New Zealand mobile payments startup founded by University of Canterbury students, led by George Smith and Matt Galloway. Its app let flatmates manage shared flat expenses, a flat account, ledgers and payments from a dashboard. After the 2014 Lightning Lab accelerator in Wellington, it became the first New Zealand company accepted into Y Combinator, relocated to Silicon Valley, and broadened the app from student flat finances to all kinds of shared costs, from restaurant bills to holidays.
02 / Glassjar FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Glassjar never found product-market fit. After entering Y Combinator the team ran in circles, rebooting with a new product and a new set of customers every couple of weeks; combined with a lack of progress and a delay working with payments partner Stripe, they decided not to pitch at the Y Combinator Demo Day. The company quietly wound down and the founders moved on.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Founded
Founded in Christchurch, New Zealand by University of Canterbury students as a way for flatmates to sort out paying shared bills.
- Accelerator and seed funding
Went through the Lightning Lab accelerator in Wellington and raised $200,000 in seed funding from Sparkbox Ventures and the NZ Venture Investment Fund.
- Y Combinator and US launch
Entered Y Combinator as the first New Zealand company accepted, receiving $120,000 in seed funding, remodeled the app and launched it into the US market. The team later decided not to pitch at Demo Day and the company wound down.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Glassjar raised about $320,000 in total: $200,000 in seed funding from Sparkbox Ventures and the NZ Venture Investment Fund, plus $120,000 from Y Combinator.
- 02
The team entered Y Combinator in January 2015 but decided not to pitch at Demo Day after 12 weeks, citing lack of progress and a delay with payments partner Stripe.
- 03
No bankruptcy filing or asset sale is publicly recorded; the company quietly wound down and co-founder George Smith later became a product manager at wallet.AI.