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Groupon history
Groupon company history timeline
Groupon's first deal was in October of 2008: buy two pizzas for the price of one in the shop on the first floor of its Chicago headquarters.
Groupon, which started as a side project in November 2008, applied The Point's technology to group buying.
Born from The Point, Groupon was launched in November 2008.
Groupon was cofounded by Andrew Mason, Eric Lefkofsky, and Brad Keywell in 2008.
31, 2010, as Mayor Richard Daley, left, unveils a new committee on technology infrastructure at 600 W. Chicago Ave, home to Groupon and other city tech companies. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
In December of 2010, Google offered to buyout Groupon for a whopping $6 billion.
By late 2010 it had grown to some 1,500 Chicago-area employees and moved into international markets.
Running the company now is Aaron Cooper, who joined Groupon in 2010 and had most recently served as North American president.
Groupon bought the Indian deal-of-the-day website SoSasta.com in January 2011 and re-branded it as "Crazeal by Groupon Inc." The Groupon acquisitions of uBuyiBuy launched services under the Groupon name in Hong Kong.
In June 2011 Mason announced his plan to take the company public.
On August 10, 2011, Groupon updated its IPO filing, after facing scrutiny from regulators and analysts over its use of a non-standard accounting metric called Adjusted Consolidated Segment Operating Income.
In 2011 Groupon also started offering Groupon Now! deals, which were usually only available for a short span of time on the day of purchase.
15, 2011, inside Groupon headquarters at 600 W. Chicago Ave. in Chicago.
In May 2012, Groupon acquired Breadcrumb, a point of sale system and iPad app that targets local restaurants.
The company’s good fortunes were not to last, however, and by August 2012 its stock had plummeted 75 percent.
By 2012 Groupon had grown from a few dozen workers to over 12,000, and it was operating in more than 150 United States cities and more than 40 countries.
On January 11, 2013, Groupon acquired real-time location sharing mobile app and small business service provider Glassman, which was founded and led by Geoffrey Woo, Jon Zhang and Jonathan Chang.
Mason was ousted from his position as CEO in February 2013.
Prior to the company's fifth anniversary, the Groupon website was completely redesigned and new features were added in November 2013.
In January 2014, Groupon bought ideeli, a fashion company, for $43 million.
In November 2014, Groupon acquired In-Store Analytics And Marketing Start-up, Swarm Mobile, a start-up that helps businesses connect with and track their customers while in stores.
On December 29, 2014, Groupon's shares rose by 1.4% after it was reported that Goldman Sachs was "weighing an investment in one of the daily deal company’s units."
In 2014 Mason founded Detour, an app that provided audio walking tours for various cities.
Groupon recorded record-breaking holiday weekend sales in North America during the full (Black Friday through Cyber Monday) weekend of 2014 (Nov.
Groupon named a new Chief Operating Officer on June 2, 2015, Rich Williams and in November, Williams was named CEO.
On July 16, 2015, Groupon announced its acquisition of food-delivery service Order Up.
On September 22, 2015, Groupon announced they would be eliminating approximately 1,100 positions, primarily in their sales and customer service operations.
In February 2016, Chinese online retailer Alibaba Group Holding Ltd disclosed that it acquired a 5.6% stake in Groupon Inc.
In April 2016, Groupon Inc. announced it received a $250 million investment from a private investment firm, Atairos Management LP, which has ties to Comcast Corp.
In May 2016, Groupon sued IBM, claiming that IBM had infringed the patent of technology that allows solicitation of customers based on where the customers are located.
In November 2016, Groupon began to reduce its area of coverage from 27 countries down to 15.
In April 2018, Groupon partnered with Universal Orlando theme parks.
In May 2018, Groupon acquired Bristol, UK-based Cloud Savings company for $65million.
Yahoo “was kind of this graveyard for cool companies,” Mason told New York Magazine in 2018.
A sign marks Groupon corporate headquarters on June 8, 2019, at the former Montgomery Ward Mail Order House building at 600 W. Chicago Ave., along the Chicago River. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
In March 2020, both Groupon's CEO Rich Williams and Chief Operating Officer Steve Krenzer stepped down from their roles.
For the first nine months of 2020, Groupon lost more than $300 million, compared with $91 million in the year-ago period.
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Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of Groupon, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about Groupon. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at Groupon. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by Groupon. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of Groupon and its employees or that of Zippia.
Groupon may also be known as or be related to GROUPON INC., Groupon, Groupon Inc and Groupon, Inc.