Whatever Happened To Ventro

from the still-alive? dept

Forbes has a very harsh article about Ventro. You remember Ventro? They were originally called Chemdex and when they went public they were held up by everyone (especially their investors) as the true B2B success story. Almost every B2B marketplace placed their bets on "being the next Chemdex (or Ventro)". Then, everything started to fall apart. We've posted articles before about the failure of Ventro, but this one has some extra information. It seems that this "shining example of success" didn't actually make any revenue until the third quarter of 2001, at which point it brought in a whopping $350,000. The only reason they got that amount was from a company they bought for $23 million. Since its founding, the company has lost $591 million. That takes talent. As I've mentioned before, someone I knew who worked there once told me the technology never worked, but that some of the folks in top management believed that if they spun a good enough story the technology wouldn't matter.