23andMe falls from $6 billion valuation to almost ZERO

[thewayne]

Its stock is trading at about $0.76 and the Nasdaq is threatening to delist them. THAT is a pretty far fall!

The core problem is that it is sort of a one-trick pony: once you get your genes tested, there's no reason to go back to the company. No repeating revenue stream. And now that revenue stream has dried up and they're facing a grim future. With their stock trading so low, it's going to be hard to raise more money.

This is a similar problem faced by the company that sells the Instapot. Once you buy one, you're not going to buy two or three (unless you have very special needs). The company soared, then tanked as the demand crashed. And there are only so many ways you can update that tech to try to hype up that demand. The inventors of the Instapot sold out to a larger kitchen goods maker, who is now struggling with the price they paid since it's no longer the sales horse that they had hoped it was.

My big question is: if 23andMe goes away, what happens to all that data that they collected?

I would have linked an article, but the only one listed in the Slashdot headline was from the Wall Street Journal which is behind a paywall.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/01/31/1532255/23andmes-fall-from-6-billion-to-nearly-0

Comments

[murakozi]

The company behind Instant did, at least, start selling other products such as coffee makers and air fryers.

[kraig]

It also helps not being owned by a private investment firm, with (I believe) a history of buying brands to shift debt.

[thewayne]

Sometimes private investment firms can be good, but damn, they can so utterly ruin companies by strip mining assets, charging rent to them for land that they used to own, saddling them with ridiculous debt, etc.  Killed Toys 'R' Us, Mervyn's, etc.

[armiphlage]

"if 23andMe goes away, what happens to all that data that they collected?"

Don't worry, hackers are already providing backups.

[thewayne]

Oh, indeed!  They've already been hacked and data leaked.

[disneydream06]

OUCH to them. :o

My big question is: if 23andMe goes away, what happens to all that data that they collected?
Sold to the highest bidder? :o :o :o
Hugs, Jon

[silveradept]

It's also not helping them that all of the stuff they were selling to people with the genetic tests were repeatedly, if I recall correctly, shown to be slightly above snake oil, if not completely snake oil itself. The only thing that was ever valuable from that company was the data that it holds, and as more and more places decide that perhaps it's a bad idea to discriminate against people based on their genetic profiles, that data becomes even more worthless to have. (But it's still likely been exfiltrated in a hack somewhere, so don't worry about what other nefarious purposes it will be put toward.)

[kaishin108]

That is just horrible. :(

[thewayne]

I'm not too disappointed.  They've been quite profligate with sharing people's data without obtaining permission first, so it doesn't bother me to see them collapse.

[kaishin108]

Oh right, I get that. But like you say all that data. I am hesitant to get on board with any of those companies but I really would like to find out a few things.