First Theranos, and now Juicero.
In all fairness, Theranos has a harder job, they were actually in the healthcare business, which involved deceiving regulators, which is hard, while Juicero was just a f%$#ing juice machine:
It sounds like America’s favorite $400 juice machine will be no longer.
“After selling over a million Produce Packs, we must let you know that we are suspending the sale of the Juicero Press and Produce Packs immediately,” reads the company blog post.
Juicero will also be giving people money back. “For the next 90 days, we are offering refunds for your purchase of the Juicero Press,” according to the note.
Founded by Doug Evans, San Francisco-based Juicero had raised more than $118 million in funding from prominent VCs like Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins. Carmelo Anthony also invested through his Melo7 Tech venture fund. Even The Campbell Soup Company threw money at it. Juicero started raising funding in 2013 and launched 16 months ago.
The company was subject to mockery, particularly after a Bloomberg piece showed that the juice packets could be squeezed by hand and did not require a fancy machine.
The emperor has no clothes.
If regulators and prosecutors did a deep dive on Silicon Valley, those that weren’t in prison would be asking, “Do you want fries with that?”