Jet.com’s Valuation Nears $600M Before Launch

[bkjelden]

One of the main arguments used to distinguish the current tech landscape from the dot-com bubble is that today's companies have real products and real revenues to back up their valuations, whereas many dot-com companies soared to huge valuations without a real product.

But Jet.com is a company worth $600M with no product... so where does that leave us in relation to 1999?

[eloff]

Exactly. These guys are the opposite of the lean startup. All air and venture funding with ambitious growth plans. No product, nothing tested, just on theory. That seems like how a lot of famous dotcom companies launched to great fanfare only to discover the market wasn't interested. Pets.com and webvan come to mind.

[staunch]

> But Jet.com is a company worth $600M with no product

This is a common misconception. They are not "worth" $600M just because investors put a little money in at that valuation.

Buying 10% of an old car for $60M doesn't make it worth $600M to anyone.

[coralreef]

Is it public money (IPO) or private money? This makes a difference.

[prostoalex]

No launched product. These are the guys who have done it before, so can probably model some numbers. Goldman and Coatue presumably like those models.

[kolev]

Where's the Snapchat's revenue or Instagram's or WhatsApp's?

[jsprogrammer]

No product? A mailing list is a product, no?

[fidotron]

This is an attempt to generate a self fulfilling prophecy. A new internet marketplace, almost by definition, cannot become viable unless people think it either is already or is a sure bet to become so. Only by trying to persuade us that it's succeeded before launching do they even have a shot.

[akcreek]

> Take advantage of Jet’s audience of millions of loyal shoppers and build a direct relationship with the customers you acquire.

I don't understand how companies can make claims like this [1]. Unless I'm missing something this has to be false considering they haven't launched yet and their homepage says 350K people have signed up for early access.

I run an online business and a couple of our competitors make false claims very regularly about being #1 (quarterly ranking from the MFG has us at #1 every time). I just can't imagine making a false claim like that - and knowing it is false.

[1] https://partner.jet.com/

[adamnemecek]

I'm guessing that VCs are betting on the co-founders' previous experience. One of the co-founders also co-founded diapers.com which achieved something like that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Lore

[melling]

I think their backend is built in F#: http://vimeo.com/104896802

[MichaelGG]

That's pretty neat. Though I'm not sure it's the best association for F# :/. I wonder if they're using WebSharper.

[alfiedotwtf]

That reminds me, how is color.com going anyway?

[dazmax]

Good question, let me cuil it.

[cflyingdutchman]

https://twitter.com/peterpham "I thought I was good.."@WSJD: http://Jet.com hasn't launched yet, but it has already raised $140 million http://www.wsj.com/articles/jet-com-raises-140-million-led-b... …"

[austenallred]

Seems like a recipe for disaster.

Why not prove something simple out with a few million before dumping $140 million into it? Does what they're building really require that much software to be written before we know if it will work? I get that the founder has been successful, but wow.

I'm usually pretty wary when people say "OMG It's 1999/a bubble all over again!" But that is a pretty damn frothy raise, even if you're optimistic.

[ssclafani]

It's for marketing:

> The capital will help fuel Mr. Lore’s grand plans, which include an estimated half-billion-dollar marketing budget and projections for $5 billion in annual transactions by 2020.

(From the full WSJ article : http://www.wsj.com/articles/jet-com-raises-140-million-led-b...)

[sixQuarks]

Despite the highly talented and proven founder, this company has already jumped the shark. Having that much funding and expectations before launch (for this type of venture) is kind of ridiculous. There's going to be unnatural pressures to this business, and I predict it will be a colossal disaster.

[bhouston]

Weird things happen sometimes if you generate enough hype.

Oculus VR got bought by Facebook for $2B when its revenues were very small, but highly hyped by nerds.

[api]

I must have missed something. I thought convertible notes were for seed stage stuff. When did people start raising hundreds of millions with them? Also why, and how, and huh?

Edit: 600m valuation, not raised. Face palm. Never mind.

[ericglyman]

It's senior in the capital structure. For a high dollar risky investment like this, you really want to protect against downside as much as you can -- a convertible note gives them this protection.

So if it all goes south, these guys can hold debt (rather than common equity) and get first claim on the assets (ahead of common equity).

[tim333]

I think it's misleading to say it's valued at $600m. What has happened is that the recent investors have invested $140m such that they get 23.3% of the stock it the thing does well. Probably it will end up worth something like $0 if it fails or say $20bn if it succeeds so the investors are hoping $20bn x $probability-of-success x 23.3% > $140m. The headline figure is 600m= 140m/23.3% but I'm not sure that's terribly important. As to whether it's a bubble it depends a bit on your view of $probability-of-success. Dunno about that one.

[dude_abides]

Private investors (a handful of rich people) bet on this startup. If their bet succeeds, they become richer, else they will still remain rich.

There is no bubble, go home everybody.

[en4bz]

Will jet.com be the next pets.com?

[krschultz]

Well, it will be at least interesting to see what happens. They are also potentially the most anti-Lean Startup we have seen in a while, and now that seemingly everyone has accepted Lean Startup as orthodoxy, that might be a unique angle.

[josu]

What are VCs shooting for here? Even a 10x exit at 6B valuation seems outrageous for a service that doesn't seem that easy to scale.

[prostoalex]

This is late-stage capital, not VC. Goldman Sachs invested in Facebook at $50 bil valuation, so with later revelation that IPO would happen around $100 bil price point, presumably they were happy about 2x.

[bane]

Relevant and recent.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9031420

[bhouston]

Another company with a skyhigh valuation pre-launch is MagicLeap - it is worth something like $1B or so.

[petercooper]

Anyone remember 'Boo'?