our new C.E.O. KARL RIEDEL- last venture turned $ 25 k into a $ 75 MILLION DOLLAR SALE. not too shabby ! i'm glad he's our new C.E.O.-
things are about to get very interesting, (if not prosperous " for all of us PAOG shareholders.
GOOD LUCK TO ALL OF US PAOG'ers.
"JUUL" is the company he sold his "little $ 25 k venture" to :
JUUL Labs ( JOOL, pronounced "jewel" is an electronic cigarette company which spun off from PAX Labs in 2017. It makes the JUUL e-cigarette, which was introduced by PAX Labs in 2015. JUUL is a type of e-cigarette that uses nicotine salts that exist in leaf-based tobacco for its key ingredient.
The JUUL became the most popular e-cigarette in the United States at the end of 2017 and has a market share of 72% as of September 2018. Its widespread use by youth has triggered multiple investigations by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The JUUL electronic cigarette was introduced by PAX Labs on June 1, 2015. In July 2017, JUUL was spun out of PAX Labs as an independent company. Tyler Goldman, former CEO of PAX Labs, was named CEO of JUUL after the spin-off. It was announced on December 11, 2017 that Goldman "intends to pursue new entrepreneurial opportunities" and was replaced by Kevin Burns. James Monsees is Chief Product Officer and board member at JUUL. Adam Bowen is Chief Technology Officer and board member at JUUL. Other board members include Nicholas Pritzker, whose family owned chewing tobacco giant Conwood, Riaz Valani, and Hoyoung Huh.
As the popularity of the JUUL e-cigarette has taken off, the company has grown quickly, from employing 200 people in September 2017 to 400 in May 2018 to over 800 by September 2018. As of July 2018, the JUUL e-cigarette is made in Shenzhen, China, like many other e-cigarettes, while the pods are made in the United States.
In July 2018, Juul raised $650 million, and was valued at $15 billion.
On December 20, 2018, JUUL Labs received $12.8 billion in funding from Altria, the maker of Marlboro. The purchase, for 35 percent of the company, was "by far the biggest investment ever in a U.S. venture-backed company," with the $12.8 billion round greatly surpassing the next highest round—$5.6 billion in 2015. According to Wells Fargo, the deal valued JUUL Labs at $38 billion. JUUL had annual revenue of about $2 billion. CNBC reported that JUUL received a $2 billion bonus to distribute among all of its 1,500 employees.
Founders:
JUUL Labs was co-founded by two former cigarette smokers, Adam Bowen and James Monsees.[ They first created a company called Ploom while they were product-design grad students at Stanford University, and later created the Pax vaporizer device for cannabis and loose-leaf tobacco before founding JUUL. As of August 2018, Bowen is Chief Technology Officer of JUUL and Monsees is Chief Product Officer.
Investors:
Current JUUL investors include Tiger Global Management, mutual fund firm Fidelity Investments, and Tao Capital. In June 2018, JUUL reportedly raised $1.2 billion in a financing round that valued the company at more than $16 billion.
Altria (formerly Phillip Morris Companies) acquired a 35% stake in JUUL Labs for $13 billion on December 20, 2018.
