Athira Sethu
Kochi, 30 December 2024
The Canadian accounting startup Bench has suddenly closed down, leaving thousands of businesses in the lurch. On December 27, 2024, the company posted a notice on its website that said the platform would no longer be accessible. Bench said it recognized the abrupt nature of the closure and would help customers through the transition.
Bench was founded in 2012 and provided bookkeeping and tax reporting services for small and medium-sized businesses. There were over 35,000 U.S. customers at the time of the company’s shutdown, based on the archived records. The firm raised $113 million from investors like Shopify and Bain Capital Ventures among others, but the company still shut it down without any warning.
Many customers are upset by the unexpected closure. Some still had years of important accounting and tax records stored on the platform.
Bench recommended customers file a six-month extension with the IRS and seek an alternative bookkeeping service. A company statement said customers could download their data by December 30, 2024, and that they’d have access until March 2025. It also advised migration to Kick, a new accounting startup. Kick’s CEO, Conrad Wadowski, assures Bench users that his company is prepared to assist them.
It would, however, turn out that this abrupt shutdown would also uncover issues that were going on in Bench. Bench’s co-founder and former CEO, Ian Crosby, was sad regarding the shutdown. Crosby said that he was replaced in 2021 by a new CEO hired by the company’s board. He blamed the failure of Bench on the leadership change, saying, “Replacing the founder never works”.
