Juul Labs’ e-cigarette has become a culturally significant device. And now, it’s surpassed Facebook in one major way.
The company was able to reach and exceed the $10 billion valuation level, known as decacorn, just seven months after its first venture-capital raise, making it the fastest any company has ever reached that status, Yahoo Finance is reporting, citing data collected from venture-capital database Pitchbook. Juul was able to hit decacorn status four-times faster than Facebook, the previous record-holder, according to the report. Juul is currently valued at $15 billion.
Juul has quickly become a wildly popular e-cigarette and the leader in that market, due in large part to its popularity among young adults. According to data obtained by Yahoo Finance, it now accounts for 73% of all e-cigarette sales in the U.S. and revenue is nearing $1.5 billion. The e-cigarette launched in 2015, but started to really catch on in the last year.
Despite its financial success, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been increasingly monitoring the e-cigarette market to curb the use of the habit-forming e-cigarettes by teenagers. Social media is awash with young people using e-cigarettes made by a variety of companies, including Juul.
Still, the FDA has not found any e-cigarette company to have committed wrongdoing in marketing their products to children.
