Uncork Capital

In memory of the dot-com era

A good Sunday read from CNET.com that features its Top 10 dot-com flops:

  1. Webvan

  2. Pets.com

  3. Kozmo.com

  4. Flooz.com

  5. eToys.com

  6. Boo.com

  7. MVP.com

  8. Go.com

  9. Kibu.com

  10. GovWorks.com

Not too sure how the list was compiled, since some of these companies did not go down the hole after spending “that much” money, but they were certainly icons of the bubble era: Kibu.com shutting down within a few weeks of launch, or GovWorks.com that became famous through the feature film Startup.com

They might also have done a top 50 including the likes of Excite@Home (though one could argue that it was an ISP), wine.com — which raised about $100M — and sold its assets to eVineyard, NetCentives ($130M VC/IPO — Chapter 11), EggHead.com ($120M VC/IPO — Chapter 11), Jobs.com ($100M VC — Chapter 11), etc.

Even though they were not dot-com themselves, I would also mention two firms that were closely involved with these companies, and had the same fate: lawfirm Brobeck Phleger and Harrison, and merchant bank Comdisco. Just to complete the remembrance.

Let’s just hope that the hyperdrive-charged IPO of Baidu.com, which saw a 354% jump on its first tranding day, does not mark the beginning of the second dot-com bubble.