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Former employees have initiated a crowdfunding campaign to support Gawker, keep the sites/archive out of the evil clutches of Peter Thiel and "preserve its history." Speaking of never dying, serial entrepreneur Sophia Amoruso announced $3.1mm in seed funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners (big winners in Snapchat) for Girlboss Media.
Why is that so many brands now are named "Something + Something"? Are we the only one's who've noticed that trend? Anyway, Bonobos is a failure because it sold(out?) for 3x its venture capital investment to Walmart Inc. ($WMT) - or so the narrative now goes. Curious. Walmart, after all, reflected the makings of a resurgence this week with a blockbuster earnings report that many largely attribute to Jet.com's Marc Lore and the e-commerce expertise he's assembled around him. Like Bonobos' Andy Dunn, for example. Nasty Gal, however, is an entirely different story; it didn't sell for 3x. It sold for parts in bankruptcy court. Its ubiquitous founder, Sophia Amoruso, now runs a, gulp, digital media company (see above). Seeing Bonobos mentioned in the same breath as Nasty Gal must have Mr. Dunn questioning life's fairness. Anyway, read between the lines in the piece and it sure sounds like there could be a waive of would-be digitally-native disrupters disrupting themselves all the way to bankruptcy court (or an assignment for the benefit of creditors). Choice quote,"'We’re seeing that some of the same brands that get celebrated for raising $10M, or hitting $100M in revenue, are gone a few years later or eek out a distressed sale.'" You're damn right they do. Who wants to start the latest hot DNVB called "Unicorn & Bankruptcy"?