当我们开始为《财富》做“独角兽时代”封面故事时，我们曾经进行内部讨论，尝试寻找一些类似的警世故事。做闪购的Fab？可以。做软件的Box？当时看起来岌岌可危，但今时已不可同日而语。有人窃笑：“Groupon怎么样？”

    团购鼻祖Groupon曾是一只标准的“独角兽”。该公司成立还不到两年的时候，风投给它的估值就超过了10亿美元。据说它随后拒绝了谷歌抛出的60亿美元收购要约，并于2011年11月上市，当时的市值达到了126.5亿美元，交易首日收盘时，其市值已经超过了230亿美元。

    没过多久，Groupon就开始盛极而衰。到2012年6月，该公司的市值已经低于谷歌的收购要约价。2013年3月，Groupon的创始CEO安德鲁•梅森被炒鱿鱼。这家本应重新激发芝加哥创新活力的公司——其仓库风格总部的另一个功能就是创业孵化器——似乎已经到了油尽灯枯的边缘。

    接下来，随着更大一批10亿美元估值的创业公司开始崛起，所有人似乎已经忘了这家团购网站——我这里说的“所有人”，不包括那些想用它过去的高额估值开玩笑的人。

    不过在我看来，这种嘲笑是没有道理的。

    Groupon不仅曾经是一只非常成功的“独角兽”，而且现在依然是。该公司目前的市值为49亿美元，仍然高于风投最初给出的估值。自从上市以来，它的营收和EBITDA（息税折旧及摊销前利润）一直在稳步攀升，另外Groupon还坐拥大笔现金，而且没有一分钱的债务。

    如果你想对那些给Groupon估值过高的人指手划脚，不妨首先看看那些公开市场上的投资者。他们本来应该使用各种理性的量化分析指标，来进行投资决策（这一点和风投不一样，风投玩的就是“伯乐相马”）。但事实上，就连Groupon在私募市场上的最后几笔交易，很大程度上是都是由互惠基金经理们推动的，他们下沉到二级市场从风投手里买二级股，而聪明的风投则早早地挣了一笔钱。

    这就好比在一个屋子里，有一些最聪明的人说服所有人相信，波士顿凯尔特人队今年将赢得60场比赛。而当凯尔特人队没有达到这个过高的目标时，他们又来笑话它。显然凯尔特队的战绩也没有达到它的终极期望，但做出这些荒唐预测的并不是它自己，而它现在也没有崩溃。

    如果Groupon能为其它“独角兽”们提供一些借鉴意义，或许也只有在上市时机的选择方面。Groupon当初的IPO决定，或许正是它目前仍然坚守阵地的原因。就像风投资本家比尔•柯尔利指出的那样，上市公司会比私人公司更容易挺过估值下跌。如果Groupon多等了一两年才上市，它才是值得嘲笑的，但它没有那样做，所以现在它也不应受到嘲笑。（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    审校：任文科

    When we began work on our Age of Unicorns cover forFortune, one internal conversation was about cautionary tales. Fab? Sure. Box? Seemed so at the time, not so much today. “What about Groupon?” someone asked with a chuckle.

    Social buying site Groupon GRPN -1.64% was one of the original unicorns, becoming valued at more than $1 billion by venture capitalists less than two years after its founding. It later would turn down a reported $6 billion acquisition offer from Google GOOG -0.88% , before going public inNovember 2011 at an initial market cap of $12.65 billion and closing its first day of trading worth more than $23 billion.

    But it didn’t take long for the wheels to fall off: By June 2012, the company was valued below Google’s proposed acquisition price. The following March, founding CEO Andrew Mason was fired. The company that was supposed to re-energize Chicago’s startup scene — replete with a warehouse chic headquarters that also served as a new business incubator — had run out of gas.

    And then everyone seemed to forget about it, as a much larger group of billion-dollar startups emerged. Everyone, that is, except for people who wanted to make jokes about past valuation excess.

    But from where I sit, the laughter is unwarranted.

    Groupon not only was an original unicorn, but it remains a successful one. The company currently has a market cap of $4.9 billion, which is higher than it ever was valued by venture capitalists. Its revenue and EBITDA have consistently climbed in each year since going public, and there is plenty of cash on hand without a single cent of debt.

    If you want to criticize someone for overvaluing Groupon, take a good long look at public market investors. You know, the folks who are supposed to use all sorts of clear-headed, quantitative metrics (as opposed to VCs, who are said to pull unicorn valuations out of thin air). In fact, even Groupon’s final deals in the private market were largely driven by mutual fund managers dipping down to buy secondary shares from VCs who were smart enough to bake in some early gains.

    It would be like if the smartest guys in the room convinced everyone that this year’s Boston Celtics were going to win 60 games, and then making fun of the Celtics when they failed to achieve such lofty goals. Obviously the team isn’t where it ultimately wants to be, but it wasn’t the one making bold predictions. Nor has it collapsed.

    If Groupon is a cautionary tale for other unicorns, perhaps it only is in the context of going public. Groupon’s decision to IPO when it did is arguably the reason it remains in business. As venture capitalist Bill Gurley noted, it is much easier to survive a valuation decline as a public company than as a private one. Had Groupon waited a couple more years, perhaps it would have been worthy of derision. But it didn’t. And it isn’t.