Dot & Bo
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Dot & Bo was a San Francisco-based online furniture and home decor retailer founded in 2013 by former CBS Interactive executive Anthony Soohoo. It targeted millennial shoppers with a story-centric approach, pairing furniture sales with design content and tailored advice, and later added office design services. The company raised about $20 million in venture funding at a valuation of roughly $60 million, grew its business 16-fold, and served millions of members.
02 / Dot & Bo FAILURE REASONS
Failure factors
Recode/Vox (24 Sep 2016) quotes CEO Anthony Soohoo and an investor: furniture e-commerce required more supply-chain/working-capital than VCs would fund after e-commerce fell out of favor; a public-company acquisition LOI did not close, and the firm could not find backers.
a tight-margin furniture business required massive costs and capital outlays the model could not beat.
An investor said supply-chain and working-capital needs exceeded original expectations and VC appetite.
Soohoo said the e-commerce market was frozen/out of favor, pushing an M&A path that then failed to close.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Operations ended
San Francisco retailer Dot & Bo closed the same day after acquisition talks with a public company broke down and said it had no option but to shut down.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
The company ceased all operations on September 23, 2016, after acquisition talks with a prominent public company fell through and it failed to find new investors.
- 02
OSP Holdings, the parent of marketplace OpenSky, subsequently acquired the Dot & Bo brand, customer and vendor lists, and other assets for an undisclosed price, and relaunched it as a small-and-midsize-business marketplace.
- 03
The $20 million in venture funding raised was effectively lost to investors; no creditor settlement was publicly disclosed.