Drop (company)

Last updated
Drop
FormerlyMassdrop
Company type Subsidiary
Industry Consumer electronics
Founded2012;12 years ago (2012) in
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Founders
  • Steve El-Hage (CEO)
  • Nelson Wu
  • Will Bright
Headquarters
Milpitas, California
,
United States
Area served
Worldwide
Number of employees
100+
Parent Corsair (2023–present)
Website drop.com

Drop (formerly Massdrop) is an American e-commerce company based in San Francisco, California. In July 2023, Corsair purchased Drop, while retaining its original brand and staff.

Contents

History

Drop founders Steve El-Hage and Nelson Wu met in Toronto, Canada, where El-Hage was studying economics at the University of Toronto. [1] The two had grown up using online forums as a way of exploring their hobbies, but believed these forums had many shortcomings, including disorganized meetups and unreliable group buys. [2] They thought that by combining their forum experiences with their interest in bulk buying, they could create a site that would better support their enthusiast in communities. [3] The pair moved to Silicon Valley, where they met Will Bright and started Massdrop in 2012. [1]

Drop changed its name from Massdrop in April 2019.

On July 17, 2023, Corsair announced it had acquired Drop. [4]

Business model

Initially, Drop sold products exclusively from existing manufacturers. Drop would organize and facilitate group buys for their community members. [5] They allowed community members to influence the products chosen to be sold through forums and polls. [6] Drop originally worked with various communities, but have since primarily sold products relating to the mechanical keyboard and audiophile communities.

The company has since introduced their own exclusive products, [7] collaborations, [5] and private-label products under the names Drop and Drop Studio. [8]

Past Drop products

Past products include the Massdrop x Sennheiser HD 6XX headphones, [6] Massdrop x Sennheiser HD 58X headphones, [9] Massdrop CTRL Mechanical Keyboard, [10] Massdrop x Sennheiser PC37X gaming headset, [11] Massdrop x Koss ESP/95X, [12] among others.

Funding

In September 2014, Drop raised $6.5 million in a Series A round led by Mayfield Fund with additional investment from previous backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, First Round Capital, and Cowboy Ventures. [1] [13] In August 2015, the company secured $40 million in Series B funding led by August Capital with additional investment from Mayfield Fund, First Round Capital, and Cowboy Ventures. [14] [15]

Related Research Articles

Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. KG is a German audio equipment manufacturer headquartered in Wedemark. Sennheiser specializes in equipment for both the consumer and professional audio markets, including microphones, headphones, and loudspeakers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Koss Corporation</span> American company specializing in audio equipment

Koss Corporation is a company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US that manufactures headphones. The company introduced the first high fidelity stereophones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corsair Gaming</span> American computer peripherals and hardware company

Corsair Gaming, Inc. is an American computer peripherals and gaming brand headquartered in Milpitas, California. Previously known as Corsair Components and Corsair Memory, it was incorporated in California in January 1994 originally as Corsair Microsystems and reincorporated in Delaware in 2007. The company designs and sells a range of computer products, including high-speed DRAM modules, power supplies (PSUs), USB flash drives (UFDs), CPU/GPU and case cooling, gaming peripherals, computer cases, solid-state drives (SSDs), and speakers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mayfield (company)</span> Venture capital firm

Mayfield, also known as Mayfield Fund, is a US-based venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage to growth-stage investments in enterprise and consumer technology companies. Founded in 1969 and based in Menlo Park, California, it is one of Silicon Valley's oldest venture capital firms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alcantara (material)</span> Suede-like synthetic textile

Alcantara is the brand name of a synthetic textile with a soft, suede-like microfibre pile, noted for its durability. Alcantara was developed in the 1970s by Miyoshi Okamoto and initially manufactured by the Italian company Alcantara. The term has an Arabic root and means "the bridge".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belkin</span> American consumer electronics and networking company

Belkin International, Inc., is an American consumer electronics company headquartered in El Segundo, California. It produces mobile and computer connectivity devices and peripherals for consumer and commercial use. These include wireless chargers, power banks, charging cables, data cables, audio and video adapters, headphones, earbuds, screen protectors and cases, surge protectors, docking stations and data hubs, secure KVM switches and network cables.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Index Ventures</span> European worldwide venture capital firm

Index Ventures is a European venture capital firm with dual headquarters in San Francisco and London, investing in technology-enabled companies with a focus on e-commerce, fintech, mobility, gaming, infrastructure/AI, and security. Index Venture partners appear frequently on Forbes’ Midas List of the top tech investors in Europe and Israel.

Beats Electronics LLC is an American consumer audio products manufacturer headquartered in Culver City, California. The company was founded in 2006 by music producer Dr. Dre and record company executive Jimmy Iovine. Since 2014, it has been an Apple subsidiary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magnite Inc</span> American advertising technology firm

Magnite Inc. is an American online advertising technology firm based in Los Angeles, California. The company was formed following a merger between Rubicon Project and Telaria in 2020.

Looker Data Sciences, Inc. is an American computer software company headquartered in Santa Cruz, California. It was acquired by Google in 2019 and is now part of the Google Cloud Platform. Looker markets a data exploration and discovery business intelligence platform.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">12-inch MacBook</span> 2010s line of Apple notebook computers

The 12-inch MacBook is a discontinued Mac laptop made by Apple Inc., which sat between the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro in Apple's laptop lineup.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jet.com</span> American e-commerce company

Jet.com was an American e-commerce company headquartered in Hoboken, New Jersey. The company was co-founded in 2014 by Marc Lore, along with Mike Hanrahan and Nate Faust. Jet.com raised $820 million over four venture rounds from GV, Goldman Sachs, Bain Capital Ventures, Accel Partners, Alibaba Group, and Fidelity. The website was formally launched in July 2015. In September 2016, it became a subsidiary of Walmart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry's</span> American shaving equipment company

Harry's is an American company that manufactures and sells shaving equipment and men's personal care products via online and retail channels. The company is known for their subscription service where customers receive new razor blades, shaving cream, and other grooming products by mail. Harry's is based in New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jaybird (company)</span> Consumer electronics company

Jaybird is a Utah-based consumer electronics company owned by Logitech. The company designs and manufactures headphones and wearable activity trackers. The company is mainly known for its line of wireless Bluetooth sports headsets. Jaybird was founded in 2006 by Australian entrepreneur Judd Armstrong.

iPhone 7 Tenth-generation smartphones by Apple Inc.

The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are smartphones that were designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. They are the tenth generation of the iPhone. They were announced on September 7, 2016, at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco by Apple CEO Tim Cook, and were released on September 16, 2016, succeeding the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus as the flagship devices in the iPhone series. Apple also released the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in numerous countries worldwide throughout September and October 2016. They were succeeded as flagship devices by the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus on September 12, 2017, and were discontinued with the announcement of the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro on September 10, 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Away (company)</span> American travel and lifestyle brand

Away is an American luggage and travel accessories brand founded by Jen Rubio and Steph Korey in 2015 and based in New York City. Having raised $31 million in financing, Away is one of the highest funded female-backed startups.

Monday.com Ltd. is a cloud-based platform that allows users to create their own applications and project management software. The product was launched in 2014 and in July 2019, the company raised $150 million, based on a $1.9 billion valuation. The company went public in June 2021 and is based out of Tel Aviv, Israel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RHA Audio</span> British earphone manufacturer

Origin North Ltd., formerly RHA Technologies Ltd., is a British independently owned audio company specialising in the design and production of in-ear headphones.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Takahashi, Dean (September 24, 2014). "Massdrop raises $6.5M to enable enthusiast communities to use their massive buying power". Venture Beat. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  2. ↑ Green, Dennis (August 17, 2015). "This startup is reinventing the flash sale for discerning men — and it just raised $40 million". Business Insider UK. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  3. ↑ Konrad, Alex (June 11, 2014). "Massdrop's Zany Plan To Rally Internet Mobs For Discounts Is Working--For Now". Forbes. Retrieved December 8, 2014.
  4. ↑ "Step forward in our evolution". Drop. Retrieved 2023-07-17.
  5. 1 2 Danziger, Pamela N. (2018-04-16). "Kickstarter Meets Costco". www.forbes.com. Forbes. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
  6. 1 2 Kronsberg, Matthew (2018-07-16). "The CEO Turning Passionate Gadget Fans Into Product Designers" . www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2020-03-01.
  7. ↑ "Massdrop Evolves Brand to Become Drop, Launches New User Experience to Enable Passions and Products". prnewswire.com. PR Newswire. 2019-04-29. Retrieved 2023-09-02.
  8. ↑ Henderson, Bill (2018-05-28). "Massdrop HD 6XX Headphones Review". daily.slickdeals.net. Slickdeals. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
  9. ↑ Picks, Amir Ismael, Insider. "Sennheiser released an affordable version of one of its best headphones — but there are only 5,000 pairs". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-04-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. ↑ Roach, Jacob. "The best mechanical keyboards you can buy". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
  11. ↑ "Massdrop x Sennheiser PC37X Review: An Elusive Gem". Tom's Guide. 2017-01-27. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
  12. ↑ Guttenberg, Steve. "Gobsmacked by the sound of the latest Massdrop Koss headphone". CNET. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
  13. ↑ Ha, Anthony (September 24, 2014). "Massdrop Raises $6.5M To Turn Group Buying Into A Broader Community Platform". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  14. ↑ Mac, Ryan (August 13, 2015). "After Nabbing Former Amazon Executive, Massdrop Rakes In $40 Million". Forbes. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  15. ↑ Ha, Anthony (August 13, 2015). "Group Commerce Startup Massdrop Raises $40M". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.