I'd have to agree. We saw this very recently in the Middle East & Turkey as well.
Out in Dubai it hurt us in terms of talent drain at crazy prices from a number of well established local firms. Their marketing spend helped to grow the local and regional e-commerce market (and still does via ventures that are still operational), but the nature of some of their exits when shutting down has ended up forcing consumers and other stakeholders to re-consider whether to trust e-commerce start ups and businesses in general. Not ideal when the sector is still very nascent.
Out in Dubai it hurt us in terms of talent drain at crazy prices from a number of well established local firms. Their marketing spend helped to grow the local and regional e-commerce market (and still does via ventures that are still operational), but the nature of some of their exits when shutting down has ended up forcing consumers and other stakeholders to re-consider whether to trust e-commerce start ups and businesses in general. Not ideal when the sector is still very nascent.
Coverage: Wamda: http://www.wamda.com/2012/08/rocket-internet-to-exit-turkey-... http://www.wamda.com/2012/09/goodbye-mizado-hello-jumia-insi... Venture Village: http://venturevillage.eu/rocket-internet-to-shut-down-turkey...
As an aside, JP Morgan has put in a significant amount of money recently into some of Rocket's ventures: http://venturevillage.eu/lamoda-jp-morgan-zalando and http://venturevillage.eu/jp-morgan-rocket-internet-the-iconi...