I've been reading SimpleClosure's H1 2026 shutdown report. It covers the startups they helped wind down between January and June 2026, so it's one company's dataset rather than the whole market. A few numbers stood out to me:

B2B SaaS made up 27.3% of closures, nearly twice the AI share (14.4%).

Median age at closure: about 3.8 years for B2B SaaS versus 2.3 years for AI companies.

Among companies that gave a reason, the top one was insufficient capital or cash flow (28.1%). Personal decisions or changed priorities were 22.2%.

Funding is very concentrated. Of $412.7B in US startup investment in H1 2026, they report $355.9B went to AI, and megadeals of $100M+ took 87.5%.

I'm early in my own journey and trying to learn from how small teams survive against bigger, better-funded players. The numbers suggest that running out of cash and runway matters more than the product itself.

For people who have run a small SaaS or AI product: what would you say separates the ones that last from the ones that close?…