Mister Spex
- 🦄Became a unicorn2021
- 📈Peak valuation$1 Billion ’21
- 💔Became a Unitard2022
- 💸Last valuation estimate~$50M
The rise & fall
5 moments · 2007–2026The key moments.
How it happened
Mister Spex is a German online eyewear retailer — selling prescription glasses, sunglasses and contact lenses, with a hybrid of e-commerce and physical stores. It went public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in July 2021, raising €375M at a roughly $1B valuation that made it 'officially a unicorn.'
Demand normalized after the pandemic, losses persisted and a costly store-rollout strategy weighed on the business; the stock collapsed more than 95%, leaving Mister Spex worth under $50M — a tiny fraction of its debut, even as a strategic investor took a stake.
Glassdoor reviews were generally positive, with scattered notes on process and pace as growth slowed at the online-eyewear retailer.
Employee accounts paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗. See our methodology.
Source: HTGF / Jones Day / stockanalysis (€375M Frankfurt IPO July 2021 at €25/share, ~$1B valuation 'officially a unicorn'; ~$45-49M market cap by mid-2026, -95%+; The Platform Group took a stake)
Founder
- Dirk GraberFounder & former CEO (through July 2024; led through the 2021 IPO and crash)No public profile matched
Disclosed investors (20)
Historical funding participation; lists may be incomplete and do not establish current ownership or investor losses.
* Lead in a funding round · Crunchbase ↗ · 2026-10-13 · Methodology · Leaderboard
