Groupon is an American global e-commerce marketplace connecting subscribers with local merchants by offering activities, travel, goods and services in 13 countries. Based in Chicago, Groupon was launched there in November 2008, launching soon after in Boston, New York City and Toronto. By October 2010, Groupon was available in 150 cities in North America and 100 cities in Europe, Asia and South America, and had 35 million registered users. By the end of March 2015, Groupon served more than 500 cities worldwide, nearly 48.1 million active customers and featured more than 425,000 active deals globally in 48 countries.
The idea for Groupon was created by former CEO and Pittsburgh native Andrew Mason. The idea gained the attention of his former employer, Eric Lefkofsky, who provided $1 million in seed money to develop the idea. In April 2010, the company was valued at $1.35 billion. According to a December 2010 report conducted by Groupon's marketing association and reported in Forbes magazine and the Wall Street Journal, Groupon was "projecting that the company is on pace to make $1 billion in sales faster than any other business, ever."
In its first earnings release as a public company, Groupon reported a 2011 fourth-quarter loss of $9.8 million on an adjusted basis, disappointing investors. Additional investor concerns arose after the company restated 2011 revenues downward in March 2012.
History
The idea that would eventually become Groupon was born out of founder Andrew Mason's frustration trying to cancel a mobile phone contract in 2006. Mason thought that there must be some way to leverage the collective bargaining power of a large number of people. In 2007 Mason launched The Point, a web platform based on the "tipping point" principle that would utilize social media to get people together to accomplish a goal. The Point was intended to organize people around some sort of cause or goal. It gained only modest traction in Chicago until a group of users decided their cause would be saving money. They wanted to round up people to buy the same product in order to receive a group discount. Founder Eric Lefkofsky wanted the company to pivot in order to focus entirely on group buying. Born from The Point, Groupon was launched in November 2008.
The name for the e-commerce platform, Groupon is a portmanteau of "group" and "coupon". Groupon's first deal was a two-pizzas-for-the-price-of-one offer at Motel Bar, a restaurant on the first floor of its building in Chicago.
The decision to focus on group buying proved wise. In just a year and a half, Groupon grew from a staff of a few dozen to over 350. Revenue and bookings also grew swiftly, and the company was valued at over $1 billion after just 16 months in business, the fastest company ever to reach this milestone.
Initial public offering
On June 2, 2011, Groupon filed to go public under the ticker symbol GRPN. The company went public on November 4, 2011. It was the biggest IPO by an Internet company since Google in 2004. The IPO was handled by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group and Credit Suisse Group.
On August 10, 2011, Groupon updated its IPO filing, after facing scrutiny from regulators and analysts over its use of a non-standard accounting metric called Adjusted Consolidated Segment Operating Income. Critics argued that ACSOI was used by Groupon to present a misleading metric of profitability. Groupon's original IPO filing with ACSOI accounting showed a positive operating income of $60.6 million for 2010; after replacing the ACSOI metric with standard accounting metrics, Groupon's IPO filing reported an operating loss of $420 million for 2010. Prior to the IPO, some analysts criticized Groupon's decision to pay out over $940 million of the $1.12 billion in venture capital Groupon had raised before the IPO – over 84% of its venture capital raised – as cash payouts to its 3 founders and early backers, rather than into the company. The large cash payout also made Groupon technically insolvent when it filed for its IPO.
In 2012, it was noted that Groupon had lost 80% of its value since its initial public offering the previous year. The stock had since rebounded and was trading around $8 in Q1 2015 before plunging as low as $2.15 in early 2016.