Bookended by a sudden shutdown and a rapid acquisition, Vancouver-based FinTech startup Bench Accounting had a chaotic holiday season.

On Fri. Dec. 27, the bookkeeping tech company abruptly ceased operations, leaving hundreds of employees out of work and thousands of small business customers in the lurch with 2025 just around the corner. 

Bench, which had raised over $100 million USD in total funding, announced the closure in a brief notice posted to its website, stating its software platform would no longer be accessible, effective immediately. The company did not disclose a reason, but The Information has since reported that it was forced by a bank calling in Bench’s venture debt loan.

Three days after closing its doors, Bench struck a deal to be acquired by US-based Employer.com.

The company’s sudden shutdown spawned a deluge of reactions on social media, including takes from former Bench leaders. The topics ranged from the perils of venture capital (VC) and venture debt to the viability of bookkeeping automation and the risks of ousting founders. Amid the upheaval, competing bookkeeping tech companies also attempted to poach Bench customers who were initially left scrambling for an alternative.

Then, three days after closing its doors, Bench announced that it had struck a last-minute deal to be acquired by San Francisco-based human resources tech startup Employer.com. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Since then, Employer.com has been working to revive Bench’s platform, rehire some of its employees, and help clients port their data or keep their existing service, promising to honour existing commitments in the hopes of ensuring a seamless transition.

“While the challenges Bench recently faced were unexpected, we recognized an extraordinary opportunity to integrate their capabilities into our own suite of solutions,” Employer.com founder and CEO Jesse Tinsley said in a statement. Tinsley has been documenting the acquisition and integration process and his push to win over Bench clients in detail on X.

BetaKit has reached out to Bench, Employer.com, and Bench investor Inovia Capital for additional comment.

Founded out of New York in 2012, Vancouver-based Bench has touted itself as “the largest bookkeeping service in America for small business.” The company provides bookkeeping automation software and access to in-house bookkeepers on a subscription basis, catering to small business owners.

In 2021, Bench claimed to have a workforce of more than 650. When it shut down last month, it had 450 employees.

While Bench’s website indicates the company is “trusted by 35,000+ American small business owners,” Employer.com told TechCrunch that Bench has approximately 12,000 customers. 

RELATED: Inside FreshBook’s struggle to reach profitability

Bench had raised over $113 million to date from a group that includes Canadian investors like BMO, Inovia, Shopify, and Teralys Capital, as well as foreign backers like Altos Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Contour Venture Partners, Sage, and Silicon Valley Bank. 

Bench’s last known financing was a $60-million Series C round in mid-2021, which came amid a much more favourable VC market. At the time, Bench did not disclose the breakdown of this round in terms of equity versus debt. PitchBook data indicates that this funding consisted of $37 million in equity and $23 million in debt and came at a post-money valuation of $232 million. 

Bench co-founder and CEO Ian Crosby departed Bench shortly thereafter in early 2022. At the time, Crosby and incoming president and CFO Jean-Philippe Durrios told BetaKit that Crosby stepped down. 

But in a Dec. 27 LinkedIn post, Crosby claimed that he was fired by Bench’s board of directors following disagreement over the company’s strategic direction. According to Crosby, after Bench’s Series C financing and decision to turn down what he wrote was “a highly lucrative acquisition offer,” an unnamed member of the company’s board informed him that they had decided to bring in “a new professional CEO to ‘take the company to the next level.’”

RELATED: Bench co-founder and CEO Ian Crosby out, company brings in president

“I hope the story of Bench goes on to become a warning for VCs that think they can ‘upgrade’ a company by replacing the founder,” wrote Crosby. “It never works.” 

In a Dec. 27 X post, Shopify COO Kaz Nejatian blamed the shutdown on the decision to replace Crosby with Durrios. “Bad investors destroyed a great Canadian company by replacing the founder with so-called professionals,” he wrote. Shopify co-founder and CEO Tobias Lütke echoed Nejatian’s assertion in a Dec. 27 X post of his own, adding that there are “too many such stories in Canada.”

Durrios became Bench’s CEO in August 2022 before quietly departing the company in November 2024. Per The Information, Durrios was replaced last year by Adam Schlesinger, executive in residence at Bench investor Inovia.

The Information has reported that the company has closed two bridge financings and struggled to retain customers since its Series C round. According to The Information’s report, Bench had been trying to sell its business in the weeks leading up to its closure, with a final push last weekend by investors from Inovia and Bain after Bench had cut off access to customers.

Employer.com, which focuses on payroll and onboarding, was launched in November by recruiting services company Recruiter.com as a consolidation of the firm’s existing portfolio of brands and technologies. According to its website, Employer.com’s clients include Google, Chipotle, Robinhood, X, and Chime. In a Jan. 1 X post, the CEO claimed the business is bootstrapped, profitable, and on track to hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue in 2025. 

Feature image courtesy Bench Accounting.

The post Bench had a crazier holiday break than your startup first appeared on BetaKit.