Cushion, a fintech startup that described itself because the “Plaid for purchase now, pay later (BNPL),” has shut down.
On Thursday, founder and CEO Paul Kesserwani posted on LinkedIn concerning the determination to wind down the corporate on the finish of 2024.
In the put up, Kesserwani stated that “regardless of bringing a number of new fintech merchandise to market,” Cushion “didn’t attain the dimensions wanted to maintain the enterprise.”
Founded in late 2016, San Francisco-based Cushion had raised a complete of $21.6 million from buyers similar to Afore Capital, Flourish Ventures, Vestigo Ventures, Better Tomorrow Ventures, and 500 Global.
Its final publicly introduced increase was in May, 2022 when it closed a $12 million Series A led by Afore Capital. Its post-money valuation in 2022 was $82.4 million, in keeping with PitchBook.
Kesserwani didn’t instantly reply to TechCrunch’s request for remark.
Cushion supplied a shopper app that sucked within the transaction historical past from its customers’ financial institution accounts, decided what charges had been assessed after which performed negotiations on their behalf to get a refund. It was designed, Kesserwani instructed TechCrunch in 2019, to be incentive-aligned with shoppers by solely taking a fee on any returned money.
Kesserwani bought the thought for Cushion after leaving his job at Twitter. While taking a while off to consider what he needed to do subsequent, he was serving to his dad and mom handle their financial institution accounts whereas they had been touring for work in Lebanon. Due to financial institution safety insurance policies, his dad and mom weren’t capable of log into their accounts from Lebanon, and finally, they confronted a mountain of banking charges as their accounts went unattended. As Kesserwani investigated, he turned to his personal accounts, and realized he had additionally been paying charges to the tune of $400 that he had no reminiscence of agreeing to.
In Thursday’s LinkedIn put up, Kesserwani stated that Cushion had automated financial institution price negotiation and reached $3 million ARR in 10 months and processed over $300 million in BNPL loans. He added that the corporate had onboarded over 1 million shoppers over time, with greater than 200,000 paying prospects.
Wrote Kesserwani: “I gave Cushion every little thing I had for 8+ years. While the end result wasn’t what we hoped for, we constructed one thing that moved the trade ahead — and I’m pleased with that. As for me, I’m excited for what’s subsequent.”
Data means that 2025 is anticipated to be one other brutal yr for startup shutdowns. In late December, one other fintech — Bench — shut down abruptly solely to be acquired days later.
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