From $6 billion unicorn to bankrupt cautionary tale: The story of 23andMe

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The DNA testing company 23andMe—once one of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley—declared bankruptcy on Monday. Anne Wojcicki, the cofounder and CEO who popularized consumer-focused genomic testing, has also resigned.

“We have had many successes but I equally take accountability for the challenges we have today,” Wojcicki wrote in a statement shared on social media. “There is no doubt that the challenges faced by 23andMe through an evolving business model have been real, but my belief in the company and its future is unwavering.” 

23andMe’s bankruptcy wasn’t entirely a surprise given the recent board and share price turmoil at the cash-strapped firm. Still, the turn has raised concerns for the company’s 15 million customers whose DNA now appears to be in limbo. (23andMe has said there will be no changes to how it stores or protects customer data.)

Wojcicki’s decision to step down follows months of pressure on the cofounder, whose entire board resigned on the same day last fall. For many years, Wojcicki was seen as a leading thinker, champion of consumer health rights, and one of a few women leading an influential biotech firm. Through her connections in tech, politics, and Hollywood, she helped push 23andMe and the possibilities of genetic testing into mainstream culture. But events of the last few years have raised questions about her legacy.

Founded in 2006, 23andMe begins offering DNA tests for $1,000 per order in 2007, asking customers to send their spit to the company in a vial in exchange for information about their ancestry and some health risks. The company’s test allows users to opt in to share their data with researchers and answer questions about their lifestyle, creating a potentially valuable database for future mining.

March 12, 2015: Wojcicki launches a drug discovery business, looking to capitalize on the data it has collected from consumers. This leads the company into a costly undertaking, with Wojcicki later recounting how she was warned against doing drug research, which can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, require several years, and doesn’t guarantee success. Wojcicki recruits top scientific researchers and 23andMe eventually develops two cancer drug targets that will reach clinical phase trials.

July 25, 2018: GSK signs a deal with 23andMe that gives the drug company exclusive access to 23andMe’s database—including DNA data for it’s then-5 million customers—for four years. “The goal of the collaboration is to gather insights and discover novel drug targets driving disease progression and develop therapies for serious unmet medical needs based on those discoveries,” GSK says in a press release. This partnership will later be extended until 2025 and GSK will announce that it led to potentially viable drug targets.

June 16, 2021: 23andMe goes public via a Richard Branson and Virgin Group—backed SPAC deal. The listing briefly values the company at $6 billion, but it will be worth $3 billion by the end of the year.

October 6, 2023: A major data breach exposes the DNA of 6.9 million people targeted by hackers. The company later confirms that the hackers targeted customers of Ashkenazi Jewish and Chinese ancestry. The breach also leads to a class-action lawsuit that will force the company to pay a $30 million settlement in 2024.

January 31, 2024: The Wall Street Journal publishes an explosive story looking at the reasons 23andMe’s was trading as a penny stock and has never turned a profit. As a public company, major flaws in its business model become obvious. Sources in the story question whether Wojcicki is paying enough attention to the company’s fundamentals or if she’s building a personal brand. More broadly, the biotech market is also suffering from a downturn that began in 2022.

September 18, 2024: In a shocking turn, the entire board of 23andMe resigns on the same day, explaining in a public letter that its members felt they had few other options. The group—which included luminaries such as Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube, and Roelof Botha, head of Sequoia Capital—wrote that while they “wholeheartedly” believed in the company’s mission to personalize health care with genetic data, they disagreed with Wojcicki’s strategic direction.

March 24, 2025: 23andMe announces it’s entering bankruptcy, prompting data privacy concerns. Anne Wojcicki steps down as CEO but says she will still make yet another bid to buy the company.

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