Paul Kesserwani, the company’s founder and CEO posted on Linkedin on Thursday that the plan to close the business at the end of 2024.
Kesserwani said in a post “despite bringing multiple new fintech products to market,” Cushion “didn’t reach the scale needed to sustain the business.”
Cushion is a San Francisco-based company founded in late 2016. They have secured $21.6 million from investors including 500 Global, Vestigo Ventures, Afore Capital, Flourish Ventures, and Better Tomorrow Ventures.
It closed a $12 million Series A in May 2022. This marks its most recent publicly disclosed raise. According to PitchBook, its post-money valuation in 2022 was $82.4 million.
Cushion provided a consumer app that retrieved transaction history from customers’ bank accounts. Also identified costs incurred, and then negotiated a refund on their behalf.
After leaving his position at Twitter, Kesserwani came up with the concept for Cushion. He was assisting his parents in managing their financial accounts while they were in Lebanon on business. He was taking some time off to consider his next steps. His parents were unable to access their accounts from Lebanon due to bank security regulations, and as a result, they were left with a pile of unpaid fees. Kesserwani looked into his own accounts during his investigation and discovered that he had also been paying $400 in fees that he couldn’t remember ever consenting to.
Kesserwani wrote “I gave Cushion everything I had for 8+ years. While the outcome wasn’t what we hoped for, we built something that moved the industry forward — and I’m proud of that. As for me, I’m excited for what’s next.”