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Zulily

E-commerce / flash salesUSA
💀 Dead / Bankrupt
Peak $2.6 BillionToday
~-100%
from peak
  1. 🦄
    Became a unicorn
    2013
  2. 📈
    Peak valuation
    $2.6 Billion ’13
  3. 💔
    Became a Unitard
    2023
  4. 💸
    Last valuation
    Wiped out
🔥 Raised & burned
$139M
Total raised
$28K/day
Burned · 13.6y alive
Funding: Tracxn / Crunchbase
Current status
Ceased operations and liquidated (Dec 2023) via an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors, after a 2015 sale to QVC/Liberty and a 2023 sale to Regent.

How it happened

Zulily was a flash-sale site pitching daily deals to moms and one of its era's hottest IPOs, going public in November 2013 at about $2.6B. Its deal-of-the-day model and slow shipping lost ground to Amazon; QVC parent Liberty bought it for $2.4B in 2015, growth kept fading, and Qurate sold it to private-equity firm Regent in May 2023 before Zulily liquidated that December. Glassdoor reviews chart the slide: employees counted five layoff rounds amid churning CEOs and strategy pivots, and said the mid-2023 Regent layoffs came with 15-minute notice, no severance and no PTO payout, health coverage lapsing within weeks. Vendors reported unpaid invoices, and staff told the shutdown would come in February were let go before Christmas.

Employee accounts paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗. See our methodology.

Source: Fast Company / SEC / Grokipedia (~$2.6B IPO valuation Nov 2013, stock soared post-IPO; acquired by Liberty Interactive/QVC for $2.4B 2015; sold to Regent by Qurate May 2023; liquidated via ABC Dec 2023)

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