Wrenchead raised nearly $100 million from fancy VCs, and while it is
still alive, it has come nowhere near fulfilling investor
expectations.  Have any VCs written off their investments in
Wrenchead?

Hello fogger-ga,

I had worked on your other Wrenchead questions and got fascinated by
the convoluted activities of this company. I?m posting this as a
comment instead of an answer because I?ve only been able to verify one
company that publicly acknowledged losing money on Wrenchead. You
might as well have the rest of the information in case it might help
with your research.

The company was started by two cousins in 1999 at the height of the
dot com boom. It sold aftermarket auto parts on the web. They got lots
of venture funding but there is no evidence that they made any profit
although the company was popular. They made many deals with various
partners and distributors. In early 2001 they entered a partnership
with NAPAonline.com and acquired ProfitPro. It is difficult to find
any hard financial information on any of these deals. Gus Conrades,
one of the company founders, was killed in a motorcycle crash in
December, 2001. His father is George Conrades who is chairman and
chief executive officer of Akamai. Polaris Venture Partners was a
leading investor in Akamai as well as  in Wrenchead. The list of
additional investors includes The Canopy Group, Goldman Sachs, WIT
Capital, UBS PaineWebber Inc., CBS, and SFX Entertainment. I couldn't
find any information about what writeoffs they may have taken for
their investment in Wrenchead.

Please let me know if this information meets your needs. If yes, I can
post it as the official answer.

Good luck with your project.

~ czh ~


REPORTED LOSSES ON WRENCHEAD

http://biz.yahoo.com/e/030331/crgr.ob10ksb.html
Form 10KSB for CRAGAR INDUSTRIES INC /DE 
31-Mar-2003 
Annual Report

LOSS ON INVESTMENT. During the fiscal year ended December 31, 2001, we
recorded an impairment on the carrying value of the investment in
Wrenchead, Inc. in the amount of $1,229,029. The fair value was
determined based upon sales of the common stock subsequent to December
31, 2001. For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2002 we determined
there was no change in the fair market value of this investment.

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2002/04/01/daily52.html
April 5, 2002
Cragar reports $1.3M loss

http://biz.yahoo.com/e/030515/crgr.ob10qsb.html
Form 10QSB for CRAGAR INDUSTRIES INC /DE 
15-May-2003 
Quarterly Report

Hi czh,

I had hoped that someone had blabbed to the trade press, but if no one
did, this is likely the best I will get.  Thanks very much.  There was
much less to wrenchead than met the eye. Or other parts.  But nobody
likes to take writeoffs, especially these days, if there is any sign
of life. Thanks very much.

fogger