CushionA fintech startup that has described itself as “Plaid for Buy Now, Pay later (BNPL)”, closed its doors.
Thursday, the founder and CEO of Paul Kesserwani poster On LinkedIn on the decision to complete the company at the end of 2024.
In the position, Kessserwani said that “despite the marketing of several new fintech products”, ” Cushion “Has not reached the scale necessary to support the company.”
Founded at the end of 2016, Cushion, based in San Francisco, had lifted a total of $ 21.6 million from investors such as Afore Capital, Florish Ventures, Vestigo Ventures, Better Tomar Tomory Ventures and 500 Global.
Its latest increase announced publicly took place in May 2022 when it closed A series of $ 12 million has led by advanced capital. Its post-money assessment in 2022 was $ 82.4 million, according to Pitchbook.
Keserwani did not immediately respond to the request for comments from Techcrunch.
Cushion offered a consumption application that aspired the history of transactions from the bank accounts of its users, determined what costs had been assessed and then carried out negotiations on their behalf to obtain a refund. It has been designed, Keserwani said to Techcrunch In 2019, to be aligned by consumers by taking only one commission on any returned species.
Keserwani had the idea of cushion after leaving his job at Twitter. While taking a little time to think about what he wanted to do next, he helped his parents manage their bank accounts while they were traveling for work in Lebanon. Due to banking security policies, his parents were unable to connect to their accounts in Lebanon, and finally, they faced a mountain of banking costs when their accounts were without supervision. While Keserwani was investigating, he turned to his own accounts and realized that he had also paid costs up to $ 400 that he had no memories of agreeing.
In the LinkedIn post on Thursday, Keserwani said that Cushion has automated the negotiation of banking costs and reached $ 3 million in 10 months and treated more than $ 300 million in BNPL loans. He added that the company had integrated more than a million consumers over time, with more than 200,000 paid customers.
Wrote Keserwani: “I gave cushion everything I had for over 8 years. Although the result was not what we hoped, we have built something that has advanced industry – and I’m proud of it. As for me, I am excited for the next one.
The data suggest that 2025 should be Another sudden year for startup closings. At the end of December, another fintech – bench – closed only to acquire days later.
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