Bookkeeping startup Bench, which raised $100M+ including from Shopify, closes down effective immediately; several employees say Bench also laid off staff
it's reputation-ending Leadership means accountability Rohit Mittal / @rohitdotmittal : Does anyone know how to go about buying Bench's assets? I'm sure investors have counsel to sell the assets and get back whatever they can. It's an opportunity to raise a few million, buy all the assets, brand name, and the rest and run the thing profitably. If you think you Natasha Mascarenhas / @nmasc_ : Bench shut down is a big deal - especially this time of the year. Watching customers and employees melt down all over my LinkedIn/X feed https://www.theinformation.com/ ... Brandon Hall / @bhallcpa : Another unfortunate example of outsiders thinking you can fully automate accounting. Bench, and those similar, have an unscalable model. Why? To have a large enough TAM and attract VC investments, they must charge rock bottom prices. Otherwise they become unaffordable to many [image] Andrew Rea / @andrew__rea : It's about to be a bloodbath on Twitter/LinkedIn + email inboxes today as every accounting firm and accounting tech startup goes after the @Bench client base. [image] Tommy Griffith / @tommygriffith : It looks like @Bench is shutting down, with 3 business days left in the year, right before tax season. Does anyone know what happened? [image] Anand Sanwal / @asanwal : 13-year old accounting software @bench shuts down abruptly 3 days before year-end If you're a customer, ouch! Raised $104M w/the last round being $60M in 2021 A zero value here is wild Would figure the customer base, software would be worth something? But guess not [image] Alex MacCaw / @maccaw : Bench just charged us for the full year. And then went under a few days later. I don't know the specifics behind their shutdown, but I would not be surprised if this was yet another example of an otherwise great business that would have thrived had they not taken venture Travis Jamison / @travis_jamison : Bench accounting/bookkeeping services just abruptly ended services. According to HackerNews they were allowing new users to sign up even yesterday. What caused this? How many people are screwed? [image] LinkedIn: David Morgantini : Almost 4 years ago I joined the Bench EPD team. Over the past 4 years, the team has grown and changed, making it virtually unrecognizable from the team I joined. … Greg O'Brien / Greg O'Brien, CPA : Wow! Bench, an original cloud accounting provider who tried to scale low cost bookkeeping has abruptly closed its doors. … Anne Hughes : Heartbroken this morning to hear that Bench Accounting is closing down operations. — I know many will echo the same sentiment that Bench … Max Ezerzer : The news today from Bench is really devastating. Having worked there for over 2.5 years, I know so many talented and hard working individuals who are now out of a job. … Forums: Hacker News : Bench accounting services shutting down r/vancouver : Long-time local tech startup, Bench, shuts down and lays off all its employees.