A once-bustling group of companies, backed by billions in venture capital funding, saw a record year for IPOs in 2021. Now, three years later, most of those direct-to-consumer, or DTC, companies still struggle with profitability. "One of the problems with a lot of direct-to-consumer companies is they're not profitable and a number of them don't really have a convincing pathway to profitability. With the cohort came a huge wave of venture capital funding, propped up by low interest rates. As the Covid-19 pandemic moved most shopping online, venture capital funds were all-in on digital native direct-to-consumer companies.

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Persons: GlobalData Retail's, Neil Saunders, Warby Parker, Casper Organizations: IPOs, CNBC, Wonder Group Locations: ThredUp