Battery Ventures — portfolio autopsies

AI talent intelligence platform acquired by Outmatch and wound down as ATS vendors absorbed its features.

The customer success category creator that couldn't create enough exit value

The enterprise CXM unicorn that IPO'd at $7.7B and compressed 75% as multiples normalized.

Unilever paid $1B for subscription razors — then sold the business 7 years later for approximately 15 cents on the dollar

Pioneered email tracking for sales — then watched everyone else do it for free.

Daily deals pioneer rejected Google's $6B offer. Stock fell 97%. CEO fired via shareholder letter. From 12,000 employees to under 500.

The enterprise social media management platform that IPO'd at $3.6B and watched two-thirds of its market cap disappear within 18 months

The behavioral analytics SaaS built by ex-Facebook engineers — acquired by Cloudflare for a fraction of what it raised

A/B testing pioneer sold for a fraction of its valuation after free tools ate the market

The farm-to-phone meal delivery startup that discovered vertical integration is a cost trap at small scale.

Jonathan Abrams built the first major social network, declined a $30M Google offer in 2003. Servers crashed under growth. MySpace overtook them in 2004. Sold to MOL Global for $100M in 2009. Shut entirely 2015.

The original social network that invented the template — and gave it to MySpace and Facebook to execute.