Caastle, a startup that was launched in 2011 as a Plus-Sized Clothing Subscription and later a stock of inserting monetization platform for clothing store, is confronted with financial problems, the company confirmed to Techcrunch after a Report by Axios.
With reference to a letter from the board, Axios reported that the company has almost no money anymore, CEO Christine Hunsicker resigned from its CEO role and the board, and the company has involved law enforcement to investigate alleged financial misconduct.
The company also confirmed to JS that it was fianved all its employees.
“The board is deeply disappointed by the behavior that led up to this moment. Our immediate focus is on tackling the challenges of the company, supporting our employees and maintaining the value of our technology and business activities. We regret that we have to temporarily introduce our employees, but we believe that this will be the best position of the current situation,” the company said in one e -mail.
Caastle raised a total of more than $ 530 million, with his last round in 2019 at $ 43 million, scorches from PitchBook.
In that letter, Also cited by PuckThe board claims that Hunsicker misled at least some of the investors of the company about financial performance, and about the capital and outstanding shares of the company, including two “falsified” audit opinions.
Both Axios and Puck reported that days before Hunsicker left the company, she was fundraising and claims about the healthy finances of the company.
Axios has noted that if the allegations of the board lead to a case of fraud against the founder, this would be one of the greatest such cases ever.
Last week Charlie Javice, the founder of student Loan Application Startup Frank, who was bought by JPMorgan for $ 175 million, was found guilty of cheating the bank. The bank claimed that Javice has blown up the number of customers. But the investment numbers for Caastle are three times as large.
Although this may not be a typical startup -shutdown experience, experts have told JS that 2025 is on schedule to be another cheeky year for failed startups.