But in addition to the Amazon wake-up call, investors were concerned about high marketing expenses, high capex, and lack of disclosure about customer churn, making it hard to understand unit economics. Recent growth was 42 percent and gross margins were improving. The pitch, in Smith's words: Blue Apron had scarcity value as the first meal-kit delivery service to go public and it had a dominant 52 percent market share with a $1 billion run rate. Skepticism right out of the boxĪ lot, and really, right from the beginning, and not just the fact that Jeff Bezos - who has perfected the strategy of losing money for as long as it takes to wipe out the competition in multiple sectors of the economy - announced his intentions to dominate the retail food market with the Whole Foods deal. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Barclays were lead underwriters to its IPO. I can't believe The Street sold this for them.' Everyone knew this was an escape plan for insiders/VC. 'I think APRN wins the award for worst performer in such a short period of time.'įinancial advisor Josh Brown of Ritholtz Wealth Management, who runs the Reformed Broker blog, didn't mince words on Twitter earlier this week, saying, 'One of the worst IPOs I've seen in the post-crisis period. But Kathleen Smith, principal at Renaissance Capital, which manages the IPO ETF, said it is still an easy call to make: Even in the more recent space of the Silicon Valley-funded 'disruptive tech' billion-dollar darlings, Blue Apron is far from alone, and it isn't, like some others, bankrupt. Go back a decade and there are a number of energy stocks - both traditional and renewable - that have worse absolute performance than Blue Apron, as well as some big biotech busts. Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or Lowerīad deals are nothing new on Wall Street. Personal Loans for 580 Credit Score or Lower Best Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit

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