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Cushion , a fintech startup that described itself as the “ Plaid for buy now , bear later ( BNPL ) , ” has shut down .
On Thursday , founder and CEO Paul Kesserwanipostedon LinkedIn about the decision to wreathe down the company at the death of 2024 .
In the post , Kesserwani said that “ despite lend multiple unexampled fintech products to market,”Cushion“didn’t attain the shell needed to sustain the business . ”
found in belated 2016 , San Francisco - based Cushion had raised a total of $ 21.6 million from investor such as Afore Capital , Flourish Ventures , Vestigo Ventures , Better Tomorrow Ventures , and 500 Global .
Its last publicly announce rise was in May , 2022 when it closeda $ 12 million Series A. Its post - money valuation in 2022 was $ 82.4 million , according to PitchBook .
Kesserwani did not at once answer to TechCrunch ’s postulation for remark .
Cushion offer a consumer app that sucked in the dealings chronicle from its users ’ bank accounts , determined what fee had been assessed and then conducted negotiations on their behalf to get a repayment . It was designed , Kesserwanitold TechCrunchin 2019 , to be incentive - aligned with consumer by only take a commission on any returned hard cash .
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Kesserwani got the idea for Cushion after leaving his job at Twitter . While taking some time off to think about what he want to do next , he was helping his parents manage their cant account statement while they were traveling for work in Lebanon . Due to cant security policies , his parent were n’t capable to lumber into their accounts from Lebanon , and finally , they face a mountain of banking fee as their accounts went neglected . As Kesserwani inquire , he turned to his own accounts , and realized he had also been pay up fee to the line of $ 400 that he had no memory of agree to .
In Thursday ’s LinkedIn post , Kesserwani said that Cushion had automated money box fee dialogue and reached $ 3 million ARR in 10 months and processed over $ 300 million in BNPL loans . He supply that the society had onboarded over 1 million consumer over time , with more than 200,000 devote customers .
Wrote Kesserwani : “ I gave Cushion everything I had for 8 + years . While the outcome was n’t what we hope for , we built something that impress the industriousness frontwards — and I ’m gallant of that . As for me , I ’m excited for what ’s next . ”
Data suggests that 2025 is expected to beanother brutal year for startup shutdowns . In late December , another fintech — Bench — shut down abruptly onlyto be acquireddays later .
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