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Kozmo.com

Kozmo.com was a venture-capital driven online company that promised free one-hour delivery of anything from DVDs to Starbucks coffee. It was founded by young investment bankers, Joseph Park and Yong Kang in March 1998 in New York City. The company is often referred to as an example of the dot-com excess.

Kozmo promoted an incredible business model; it promised to deliver small goods free of charge. The company raised about $280 million including $60 million from Amazon.com. The business model had been criticized and in fact, the company failed soon after the collapse of dot-com bubble, laying off its staff of 1,100 employees and shutting down in April 2001.

As of February 2000, it operated in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, New York, Washington and Los Angeles. Its headquarters were located in New York City. It entered a five-year co-marketing agreement with Starbucks in February 2000, in which it agreed to pay Starbucks $150 million to promote its services inside the company's coffee shops. Kozmo.com ended its deal in March 2001 after paying out $15 million.

Although Kozmo filed an IPO with Credit Suisse First Boston, it never went public.

A documentary film e-Dreams (2002) portrays the fate of the company.

See also: dot-com, Webvan online grocer

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