糖心视频

E-cigarette company JUUL Labs Inc. is on the verge of making history.

It appears that reports that Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc. is going to take a 35 percent stake in the San Francisco company , according to JUUL Labs CEO . JUUL’s founders and are thus set to become , according to Bloomberg.

Follow Crunchbase News on

On JUUL鈥檚 , Burns wrote:

鈥淭oday, we have been joined by an unlikely 鈥� and seemingly counterintuitive 鈥� investor in our journey. Altria today announced a minority investment of $12.8 billion into JUUL for a 35% ownership in the company along with services to accelerate our mission. We understand the controversy and skepticism that comes with an affiliation and partnership with the largest tobacco company in the US. We were skeptical as well. But over the course of the last several months we were convinced by actions, not words, that in fact this partnership could help accelerate our success switching adult smokers. We understand the doubt. We doubted as well. We made it very clear that any investment would need to meet demanding and specific criteria to ensure that they are committed to our mission.鈥�

JUUL was just founded , according to Fast Company, and has since raised a total of in venture funding. Its most recent raise was a from in July 2018 that that gave the company a $15 billion pre-money valuation, according to its Crunchbase profile.

Altria’s plans to put about $12.8 billion in JUUL will take its valuation to about $38 billion, , according to Bloomberg. The deal makes San Francisco-based JUUL more valuable than Elon Musk鈥檚 and , Bloomberg noted.

The actually goes back to 2004 when Bowen and Monsees, as Stanford grad students, begin developing an e-cigarette prototype out of foam. They ultimately formed an e-cigarette company called . Ploom鈥檚 ModelTwo product was acquired by Japan Tobacco International in 2015. The duo bought back JTI鈥檚 stake in their company and renamed it , of which JUUL was ultimately spun out.

In July, we reported that JUUL turned in $245 million in calendar 2017, 鈥渦p from around $60 million in 2016,鈥� . The company also projected revenue of $940 million in 2018, had gross margins of 70 percent, and its 鈥�2018 EBITDA projection (was) approximately $250 million,鈥� Primack added.

As our EIC Alex said at the time, it鈥檚 kind of shocking that JUUL just might be a better unicorn than most software shops.

Illustration: