Inside the wild fall and last-minute revival of Bench, the VC-backed accounting startup that imploded over the holidays

But it was chaos for thousands of small business owners who use Bench, an accounting and tax startup based in Canada that raised $113 million from investors like Bain Capital Ventures and Shopify.

That morning, they found themselves unable to log into their accounts right as tax season was starting. Bench’s entire website was offline except for a notice that Bench had shut down after 13 years of operation. 

Bench’s hundreds of staff found themselves laid off effective immediately without any severance or notice, multiple ex-employees told TechCrunch. Emails TechCrunch sent to employees that day bounced back. 

The move was so sudden that one customer who kept years of data on Bench’s website, and was even featured on its front page before it went offline, learned of the shutdown only when TechCrunch called him for a reaction. 

“I was not aware of that,” Justin Metros, co-founder of Radiator, said. “I’ve never seen anyone just shut down like that. That’s crazy.”

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