Beyond Meat

Foodtech / plant-basedUSA

New to Unitard

📉 Public < $1B

Peak $13.9 BillionToday

−99%

from peak

🦄
Became a unicorn
2019
📈
Peak valuation
$13.9 Billion ’19
💔
Became a Unitard
2023
💸
Last valuation
~$123M

Current status

Public (Nasdaq: BYND); reported impairment charges

Live · BYND· NasdaqGS

as of 2026-10-23

$7.15▲ 4.38% today

≈ $123 Million market cap · −99.1% from peak

The rise & fall

7 moments · 2009–2025

The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.

2009

Founded in El Segundo

Ethan Brown starts with plant-based chicken strips.

Wikipedia

May 2019

IPO pops 163% — unicorn on day one

The best U.S. market debut since the financial crisis.

CNBC

Jul 2019

The peak: stock touches $234.90$13.9B

Grocery rollouts and fast-food pilots stack up; market cap nears $13.9B.

Macrotrends

2021–22

The hype cools

Growth stalls as trials fade and partnerships fizzle; losses widen.

CNBC

2022–24

From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2022–24

Glassdoor reviews from the slide are strikingly consistent: staff praised colleagues and the mission but faulted strategy churn, heavy celebrity-marketing spend, and repeated layoffs.

2023

Slips out of the club

Market cap closes under $1B — a Unitard, four years after the debut.

companiesmarketcap

2025

Impairment quarter

An inventory write-down lands and the annual report is delayed.

SEC filing

Today

Still in the club — and still trading

Live · BYND · NasdaqGSas of 2026-10-23

$7.15▲ 4.38% today≈ $123M cap · −99.1% from peak

💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.

How it happened

Beyond Meat makes plant-based burgers, sausages and ground 'meat' meant to mimic animal protein, and its May 2019 IPO was one of the most explosive debuts in years, its market value rocketing to about $13.85B that July.

As the plant-based hype faded, growth stalled and losses mounted, the stock fell roughly 97%; by 2026 the company was worth around $0.4B, weighed down by shrinking sales, heavy debt and an inventory-impairment charge.

Source: CNBC / Macrotrends / companiesmarketcap (peak market cap ~$13.85B July 2019, $234.90 ATH; ~$0.4B market cap by 2026; Q3 2025 material impairment, delayed annual report)