How did the once-loved unicorns fall from grace?

From a former unicorn to being sold at a low price, from raising over 100 million yuan in financing to now being reported to have closed down and fled, from being a star company that was loved by everyone to now having to rely on layoffs to cut costs, what exactly happened in between?

Single profit model

Evernote: Unicorn legend now has a much smaller team

Evernote, founded eight years ago, became a unicorn in 2012. But as giants such as Microsoft and Apple gradually began to pay attention to the note synchronization function, Evernote began to have a hard time. Last year, the company announced a 13% layoff of its global employees and closed offices in Taiwan, Singapore and Moscow. Before this major reduction in the team, Evernote founder Phil Libin had already resigned in July.

If the company's huge turmoil is just a symptom, then the failure of several attempts at transformation is the underlying reason. Evernote once launched a peripheral store that was "draining the pond to catch all the fish", and the products were so expensive that users were discouraged. In addition, several extended apps of notes, such as "Food Notes" and "Circles", had no product features. These new products were declared "dead" at the end of last year.

In the end, Evernote returned to a single membership payment model. But in the face of Microsoft and Apple's more advantageous free services, is this business model attractive enough?

Wandoujia: Valued at US$1.5 billion, finally entrusted to Alibaba

On July 5 this year, Wandoujia officially announced that its application distribution business will be incorporated into Alibaba Mobile Business Group (hereinafter referred to as Alibaba Mobile), and the two parties have officially signed a merger agreement. As a result, Wandoujia, which had refused to be acquired several times, finally committed to Alibaba. According to previous media reports, the price of Alibaba's acquisition of Wandoujia this time was US$200 million, which is far from the highest valuation of US$1.5 billion.

Wandoujia was born in 2009. It seized the dividend of the popularization of smartphones and the connection with computers and quickly became the darling of the market and users. According to the news at that time, by the end of July 2013, Wandoujia had more than 200 million users, more than 650,000 unique applications, and more than 35 million applications distributed daily, making it the largest and highest quality application store in China.

However, after 2014, Tencent launched App Store, Baidu acquired 91 Assistant and used page search to direct traffic to Baidu Assistant, and mobile phone manufacturers also began to show strong enthusiasm for app stores. Finally, this year when the capital winter has arrived, Wang Junyu, co-founder and CEO of Wandoujia, posted a long Weibo post titled "This is not the end", saying that the decision made today was an active choice, which is regrettable.

Foursquare: A brief period of popularity, but a bloody financing

The check-in app Foursquare was also very popular. Similar apps in China include Jiepang. Foursquare was founded in 2009, when smartphones were just emerging. It cleverly used the built-in GPS function and app collection of mobile phones. Users only need to check in at designated locations as required to receive rewards. This business model is very suitable for shopping and consumption places.

In 2013, Foursquare reached its peak. After the C round of financing that year, the company raised $50 million and its valuation was as high as $600 million. But after that, Foursquare gradually embarked on the road of "bloody financing", with valuations lower and lower. Until the end of last year, Foursquare's valuation finally shrank to $250 million, a drop of about 60% from its highest value. There was even news that Yahoo would acquire Foursquare, but Yahoo was already in trouble at the time. It was difficult to tell whether this news was true or false, but Yahoo was subsequently acquired by Verizon, and Foursquare's plan to find someone to take over was completely shattered.

Meanwhile, the domestic “Jiepang” had already died in late 2014. The way of using consumption scene check-in also faces the question of the single usage scene and business model. Under the constraint of only using commercial venues to sponsor a profit model, I believe that Foursquare’s fate of following the footsteps of “Jiepang” should not be too far away.

Dada Logistics: After three rounds of financing in one year, it was finally sold at a discount

In April this year, JD.com Daojia announced the acquisition of Dada Logistics in a high-profile manner, exchanging JD.com Daojia's business, JD Group's business resources and US$200 million in cash for approximately 47.4% of the new company's shares and becoming the single largest shareholder.

According to IT Juzi's public information, Dada Logistics completed three rounds of financing in 2015, with a total financing amount of more than 400 million US dollars. Among them, the last round of financing, the D round of financing, was made public on December 31, 2015, with a joint investment of 300 million US dollars by Sequoia Capital and DST. Less than five months later, Dada sold 47.4% of its shares to JD.com at a price lower than the D round of financing, which is a pity.

According to a person who previously started a business in the crowdsourcing logistics field, it seems that both O2O platforms and consumers have a high demand for crowdsourcing logistics, but in essence, crowdsourcing logistics still needs to compete on traffic and business content. Without a stable source of orders and traffic, it will become the biggest bottleneck in development.

The person believes that although it seems that Dada has lost a lot of voice after the merger with JD.com, for this industry, finding a long-term platform to supply orders and traffic will become a major trend.

Scandal in the core business

Theranos: $9 billion valuation finally becomes $0

Theranos is the company that has fallen the fastest and hardest in Silicon Valley. Theranos was originally a smart medical startup that envisioned replacing hospital blood tests with home medical devices. The company's founder, Elizabeth Holmes, was even hailed by the tech media as the "female version of Steve Jobs."

At that time, this exciting technology was believed to be able to disrupt the $76 billion blood testing market. Theranos' valuation once reached as high as $9 billion. Remember, this was a company with no actual products on the market.

However, the Wall Street Journal soon revealed that this inspirational story of the "female version of Steve Jobs" might just be a scam. Theranos' medical device failed to pass FDA certification, and only one of the more than 200 blood samples tested by the company had a correct test result.

Earlier this year, with the intervention of the US FDA, Theranos Laboratories will be revoked of its medical industry license and will be banned from the medical industry for two years. Theranos' valuation dropped from $9 billion to zero in just half a year.

Zenefits: A policy scandal at the height of its success

When talking about the hot SaaS (Software as a Service) startups in recent years, we have to mention the cloud HR company Zenefits. With the popularity of SaaS, Zenefits successfully became a unicorn just two years after its establishment. By 2015, the valuation of Zenefits, which was at its peak, was as high as 4.5 billion US dollars.

Zenefits' business model is to provide a one-stop solution to help companies solve human resources compliance, recruitment, payroll management, medical insurance and employee benefits needs.

However, the problem lies in the insurance issue of the company's core business. In the United States, selling health insurance requires relevant training and permission. However, Zenefits did not follow this regulation. The company's new business model has taken away the "rice bowl" of traditional insurance companies, and competitors have also found their weak spots and "hit them with one blow."

In the end, Zenefits paid a $62,500 fine to the relevant US authorities. After a series of scandals and the cold reception of SaaS companies, Zenefits lowered its valuation from $4.5 billion to $2 billion last month. However, this valuation reduction was not due to a new round of "bloody financing", but was based on the adjustment of the company's existing stock price.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.