In documents filed in federal court this week, the San Francisco company Lily Robotics blames its demise on excessive product demand and a funding drought.  Source: Lily details failure, refund plans in bankruptcy filing

After getting burned by one Kickstarter project that died, I realized that very smart EEs think that if they can make 3 prototypes, everything else is just “details.” But high-volume, tight-tolerance manufacturing is its own field, and competition from excellent companies is stiff. So even if it eventually succeeds, by the time a Kickstarter hardware project has filled its initial orders,  conventional companies will have equivalent products in the stores.