Juul Labs Inc. is an American e-cigarette (electronic cigarette) company that was separated from Pax Labs in 2017. The company makes the Juul e-cigarette, which packages nicotine salts from leaf tobacco, into one-time use of small cartridges. Juul Labs Inc. was co-founded by Adam Bowen and James Monsees. Its headquarters are based in San Francisco, the U.S. On December 20, 2018, Altria Group (formerly known as Philip Morris Companies) acquired a 35% stake in Juul Labs for $12.8 billion. Juul received an additional $2 billion bonus to distribute among its 1,500 employees.
At the end of 2017, Juul Labs became the most popular e-cigarette in the United States and had a market share of 72% until September 2018. It got widely spread in youth and has raised concerns from the public health community and multiple investigations by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. There is a high nicotine concentration in Juul products. Therefore the nicotine-related health consequences of its use by young people could be more severe than those from their use of other e-cigarette products.
Inception
In 2005, Adam Bowen and James Monsees met at Stanford University and formed an e-cigarette company called Ploom; in 2007, they started a business with the same name Ploom. Then in 2015, they sold their company Ploom, and its name was changed to Pax Labs and then developed into Juul. Juul Labs, Inc. was founded on 22 May 2015. In June of 2015, the Juul e-cigarette was introduced by PAX Labs.
Juul Labs was separated from PAX Labs as an independent company in July 2017, and Tyler Goldman, the former CEO of PAX Labs, was named as the CEO of Juul Labs. In December 2017, Tyler Goldman was replaced by Kevin Burns. Co-founder James Monsees worked as Chief Product Officer, and board member at Juul and co-founder Adam Bowen worked as Chief Technology Officer and board member at Juul. Other board members of the company include Nicholas Pritzker, whose family owns chewing tobacco giants Conwood, Riaz Valani, and Hoyoung Huh.
The company grew from 200 employees in September 2017 to 1,500 employees in 2018. As of 2018, Juul Lab’s e-cigarette is manufactured in Shenzhen, China, and the pods are made in the United States.
Evolution
Juul Labs raised 650 million dollars, giving it a valuation of 15 billion in July 2018. Altria, one of the world’s largest cigarette manufacturers, bought 35% of Juul for $12.8 billion on 20 December 2018. According to Wells Fargo, from this deal, the Juul Labs were valued at $38 billion. In 2018, Juul had annual revenue of about $2 billion.
Martha Coakley (the former Massachusetts Attorney General, joined Juul Labs on April 2018, for working in the government affairs team to coordinate lobbying for the product while also advocating against underage usage. Juul Labs bought a building in San Francisco, U.S., in 2019 for almost 400 million dollars. On June 13, 2019, the United States House of Representatives launched an investigation into Juul Labs and began looking into the business deal with Altria, its social media and advertising practices, and communications.
The investigation was headed by Illinois Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, who was the Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy. They found that “JUUL Labs appears to be violating FDA regulations against making unapproved express and implied claims that its product helps users to stop smoking cigarettes and is safer than cigarettes.” It was announced that Kevin Burns was stepping down as CEO, and KC Crosthwaite, the Chief Growth Officer for Altria, will be taking over the post of CEO on 25 September 2019.
In October 2019, it was reported that Juul Labs planned to lay off approximately 500 workers by the end of 2019. In October 2019, Juul executives such as Chief Financial Officer Tim Danaher, Chief Administrative Officer Ashley Gould, Chief Marketing Officer Craig Brommers, and Senior Vice President of Advanced Technologies David Foster got departed from the company. Altria announced that it was writing down $4.5 billion of the investment it had made in Juul by recording the pre-tax charge in its 3rd quarter results on 31 October 2019.
Awards & Achievements
Juul Labs became a very famous company by the end of 2018, but later, when the company went under investigation by FDA, they found that the company is making false claims about its product. After all this, the company is facing many losses, and its value has become one-third of its value. Juul Labs product has a very good design of its product, but until now, it was not able to get any awards for its product or for the company work.
Net Worth of Juul in 2024
As of December 2024, Juul net worth is estimated to $25 billion, which was previously valued at $38 billion, the company hit after an investment from tobacco maker Altria in December 2018. Altria’s investment of $13 billion made the co-founder Bowen and Monsees billionaires for nearly ten months, but now their net worth is also deceased.
When Juul Labs started, it got investments from many rich people around the world. It also got recognized among youth, and they liked the Juul Labs e-cigarette, but later, when the company went under investigation by FDA, people came to know that they have more amount of nicotine in their products. The company can improve in the future and can become as popular as it was previously.