Bench to be acquired after abruptly shutting down

Bench, the VC-backed accounting startup that left thousands of customers locked out of their accounts after it suddenly shut down last week, will be acquired by Employer.com for an undisclosed price in a last-minute deal, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.

The San Francisco-based HR tech company Employer.com focuses on payroll and onboarding, in contrast to Bench, which specializes in accounting and tax. Employer.com’s chief marketing officer Matt Charney told TechCrunch the company will revive Bench’s platform and provide instructions for customers to login and obtain their data imminently.

Customers will be given the choice to port their data or keep their service under new ownership, Charney told TechCrunch. Bench’s previous recommendation to file for a six month extension with the Internal Revenue Service to look for a new bookkeeper is no longer needed if customers decide to stay on, Employer.com confirmed.

Bench’s website, which is still offline at the time of writing, previously touted more than 35,000 “American small business owners” on its platform, according to an archived copy. (Post-publication, Employer.com told TechCrunch that Bench has approximately 12,000 customers.) Bench’s website currently reads: “More information on how to continue your services will be available soon.” The startup’s abrupt shutdown on Friday caused

chaos, with customers finding themselves locked out of their accounts right as tax season is set to begin, and emails from TechCrunch to Bench employees bouncing back.

TechCrunch confirmed the acquisition with a Bench board member. Neither Bench nor Employer.com would comment on the acquisition price.

Employer.com is a new company: Its CEO, Jesse Tinsley announced his acquisition of the domain name in November for about $450,000. Tinsley is behind a host of HR, onboarding, and recruiting-related businesses, including Recruiter.com and BountyJobs. In a post on December 11, Tinsley said that the company is “still acquiring companies” in the HR space. Employer.com is not VC-backed and is entirely self-funded, Charney told TechCrunch.

In a statement announcing the acquisition, Employer.com said Bench customers can expect to continue “working with the same expert in-house bookkeepers they know and trust.”

“This acquisition ensures that Bench customers can continue relying on the same high-quality service they’ve always received, while also opening the door to future enhancements and capabilities powered by Employer.com’s extensive resources,” Employer.com’s statement said.

That may be tricky in practice. Bench employed more than 600 people, according to its website, some of whom posted on LinkedIn after the

shutdown notice that they were now looking for work. Bench is now starting to call “many” – but not all – of its employees back to work to ensure continuity, Jennifer Bouyoukos, Bench’s chief people officer, told TechCrunch.

TechCrunch archived Bench’s original shutdown notice from December 27