"While sales at the Chicago-based company surged more than
14-fold to $644.7 million last year, Groupon has also amassed $540.2 million in operating losses since its founding in 2008 and its costs are rising faster than revenue," Bloomberg reports. Meanwhile,
some have raised questions about Lefkofsky's professional track record.
Prior to Groupon, Lefkofsky founded printing-service provider InnerWorkings, which went public in 2006. He also helped found Echo Global Logistics, a shipping-technology company, in 2005. That company held its IPO in 2009. Lefkofsky also co-founded Starbelly.com, an online promotional-merchandise seller, in 1999 and sold it a year later to Ha-Lo Industries Inc. for $240 million. As Bloomberg notes, Ha-Lo filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors in July 2001 after writing down the acquisition.