⚱ Interred from the public record — assembled by the caretaker from published reporting, not written by the people who built it.
Bench
2013 – 2024
Thousands of businesses lost their books on a Friday in December.
Certificate of Death
State of Perpetual Beta · Dept. of Discontinued Software
- The departed
- Bench
- Known for
- Bookkeeping as a subscription for small businesses
- Born
- 2013
- Died
- December 27, 2024
- Survived
- about 12 years
- Cause of death
- Switched off four days before the year ended
- Peak MRR
- Undisclosed
- Lifetime revenue
- Undisclosed
- Capital burned
- $100M
- Founder-hours lost
- Uncounted
- Survived by
- None recorded
- Laid to rest by
- The caretaker, from public record
- Interred
- July 30, 2026
- Source
- geekwire.com
Eulogy
Founded as 10Sheet in 2010 and relaunched as Bench in 2013, it raised over $100 million and kept the books for thousands of small businesses. At 10:39am on 27 December 2024 those customers received an email announcing immediate closure — and the platform went offline at the same moment, taking their financial records with it, four days before the end of the tax year. Around 450 staff lost their jobs. Bench's advice to customers was to file a six-month IRS extension. Employer.com acquired it three days later and restored access.
Lessons for the living
If your customers' records live inside your product, an abrupt shutdown isn't a closure. It's a hostage situation.