This article is more than 1 year old

Drkoop.com commits euthanasia

Spent out

Drkoop.com the US online health business, has thrown in the towel, after failing to find additional debt or equity financing, or sell assets.

The company has lurched from funding crisis to funding crisis for nearly two years, and says there will be no money for shareholders. What's the betting that Amazon.com picks up the URL?

In April 2000, Drkoop.com said it needed new funding badly. The company had already munched its way through $120m. Four months later, the Austin, Texas, company secured $20m in cash from a VC consortium, on the condition that it accepted a new management team led by three members of Prime Ventures, one of the investors.

The new guys were brimming with optimism: it wasn't enough. A Barrons survey of the financial health of 339 dotcoms published in December last year showed that Drkoop.com was the second most likely to run out of cash.

Drkoop.com was set up in 1997 and the name of its founder, the former US surgeon general Dr C. Everett Koop. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like