Bench to be acquired after abruptly shutting down
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Bench to be acquired after abruptly shutting down
1–10 of 92 posts
Re: Bench to be acquired after abruptly shutting down
#2Let's wait and see. This is a case study in how not to shut down a company. I, like many business owners, will have already started looking at alternatives. With an estimated 35,000 businesses you would have thought Bench would have some acquisition offers on the table before they chose to close.
Re: Bench to be acquired after abruptly shutting down
#3https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42523061 "bench accounting services shutting down". 3 days ago, 300 comments
Re: Bench to be acquired after abruptly shutting down
#4Let's wait and see. This is a case study in how not to shut down a company. I, like many business owners, will have already started looking at alternatives. With an estimated 35,000 businesses you would have thought Bench would have some acquisition offers on the table before they chose to close.
It's possible that they explored all acquisition possibilities they could find without the world knowing about their situation, and that the only company or companies who could reach acceptable terms to acquire them didn't have the network links to find out that Bench was acquirable until the news broke that they were shutting down.
Obviously not an ideal situation, both parties (if an acquisition is indeed happening) would prefer to have been able to do it before Bench's announcement, but there's simply no way to let every single person & company in the world who might consider acquiring them know what's on the table without the information being public knowledge too.
Re: Bench to be acquired after abruptly shutting down
#5[flagged]
Re: Bench to be acquired after abruptly shutting down
#6> Your service will continue seamlessly with the platform you’ve always trusted.
Uh, I think that trust may be a bit compromised until they explain what the hell happened.
Re: Bench to be acquired after abruptly shutting down
#7lol, well, the companies who have already started a migration away from Bench are probably not going to stop their migration. Ouch.
Re: Bench to be acquired after abruptly shutting down
#8Seems like a last second deal. Doesn't inspire confidence. For context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42523061
And former CEO's post: https://x.com/ianwcrosby/status/1872724231999381790
Re: Bench to be acquired after abruptly shutting down
#9[deleted]
Re: Bench to be acquired after abruptly shutting down
#10Let's wait and see. This is a case study in how not to shut down a company. I, like many business owners, will have already started looking at alternatives. With an estimated 35,000 businesses you would have thought Bench would have some acquisition offers on the table before they chose to close.
It's possible that they explored all acquisition possibilities they could find without the world knowing about their situation, and that the only company or companies who could reach acceptable terms to acquire them didn't have the network links to find out that Bench was acquirable until the news broke that they were shutting down. Obviously not an ideal situation, both parties (if an acquisition is indeed happening…
NDR (Net Dollar Retention) in a business like this is the key metric for determining whether there's a business or customer base worth acquiring here. With Bench's rumored churn in recent years, their existing investors which includes top funds like Bain and reputable ones like Inovia (which is top Canada) would've had the opportunity to invest first. Clearly they didn't.
With a rumored 2024 revenue of $54.9m in 2024, and peak valuation at $230m+ (4x Rev which isn't unreasonable to pay even for a tech-enabled services business), churn would've been really bad for this deal to end up here.