"The humbling of Europe’s most-hyped startup incubator: Rocket Internet"

A sign there might be a problem with this one was a line in the offering documents:

"Our proven winners generated aggregated net losses of €442 million" ($568 million)
—Rocket Internet prospectus via "How Do You Say 'Dot-Com Crash' in German?"

Yeah, we've been following RKET for a while.*

From Fortune Magazine, September 1:

Rocket Internet, the German startup incubator that was once the darling of Europe’s technology sector and a thorn in the side of the Silicon Valley startups whose business models it shamelessly ripped off, announced Tuesday that it plans to delist from the Frankfurt and Luxembourg stock exchanges after seeing its shares fall 13% this year.

Rocket says it has plenty of access to money to fund its startups from private investors and doesn’t need the public markets anymore. But it's hard to read Rocket’s decision as anything other than a humbling blow for Oliver Samwer, Rocket’s brash cofounder and chief executive officer, who once boasted that he wanted to “own the Internet” and claimed his Berlin-based “startup factory” could churn out one successful tech firm after another.

Founded in 2007 by Samwer and his two brothers, Rocket’s formula was to find promising new online business models—usually copying those of fast-growing U.S. e-commerce firms—and rush to create copycat versions in different parts of the globe before the originals could expand internationally. Samwer claimed its companies could execute faster and better than tech firms elsewhere, giving them a competitive advantage.

Rocket helped put Berlin’s startup scene on the map. Many of the young business school graduates who flocked there to work for companies being incubated by Rocket have gone on to found their own technology startups or became local venture capitalists.

But Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors have long griped that Rocket merely produced “built-to-be-bought” clones that did little but exact a tax on American innovation—forcing the U.S. pioneers to spend more to enter new markets. Critics also accused Samwer of pumping up the valuation of Rocket’s startups through venture capital rounds led by his own, separate startup investment fund, Global Founders Capital.

Rocket did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

Controversial growth metrics
Rocket's tendency to overvalue its own startups became apparent once the company went public in October 2014. Rocket used a controversial metric, called last portfolio value, or LPV, which valued these startups based on their last financing round—even though those rounds often involved Rocket itself or related funds and might not reflect current market dynamics....

....MUCH MORE

The stock closed on Wednesday at   € 18.68.
The October 1, 2014 IPO price was €42.50 and British hipsters were overrunning Berlin.

*Some previous posts:
Berlin's Rocket Internet Is Not Doing Well After Major Investor Cuts Stake (RKET.DE)
When A Company Issues A Press Release At 11:40 P.M., It's Usually Not Good News (Rocket Internet: RKET)
Rocket Internet May Have A Proven Winner (RKET)
"Tracking HelloFresh’s Growth"
Rocket Internet Struggles to Prove Its Profits Can Take Off (RKET.GR)
Whoa!! Germany's Rocket Internet May Not Be Valued Correctly
Hey, One of Rocket Internet's 'Proven Winners' May be Coming Public (RKET.GR)
Climateer Line of the Day: Venture Capital Economy Edition

Dear Berlin, It's Okay If You Want To Send The Hipsters Home
Over the years we've chronicled Berlin's toleration of the hipsters:

October 2013
How Hipsters Ruined Berlin
June 2015
Mathematical Model Explains Why All Hipsters Look the Same
Jan. 2017
Brexit: "Berlin to Send Back Thousands of British Hipsters"
July 2018
"Peak Hipster: Nordic miniature shaving axe"
We've passed the peak haven't we?
Please tell me we've passed the peak, seeing faux lumberjacks in the city is still jarring even after a half-decade....

Brexit: "Berlin to Send Back Thousands of British Hipsters"

Angela Merkel confirmed that British hipsters would be expelled post-Brexit as they have little to offer Germany except basic website design skills and minimal techno club nights. 

She said: “We cannot be expected to support thousands of aspiring musicians and bloggers with names like ‘DJ Leo Fukk’ and ‘Tufty’.

“They are nice enough but utterly useless. We have plenty of local young people who can serve cocktails in a surly way.”...MORE