This is a post no founder ever wants to write. We have reached the end of the Acquicent road, and I am heartbroken. We spent the better part of the year in “limp mode” trying to close a round of financing to enable us to clear some regulatory hurdles and get back to full steam. We set an internal deadline to close that funding by end of Q3. We (I) failed to achieve that, leaving no realistic path forward for the company. I believe passionately in what we were building, and I'm absolutely certain that great companies will come along and successfully pull off what Acquicent will not, a belief that tastes bittersweet at best. We did great work! We signed up more than 1,000 customers. We earned gobs of media attention, being featured in some of the most respected publications on the planet. We built a world-class software product and user experience, thanks to the hard work of our incredible product team Sean Everett and Lewis Kihiu. We had a staggering pipeline of museums and cultural institutions eager to add assets to the platform (once we were “legal”), thanks almost entirely to the business development superpowers of Robert York. I can't recommend the three of them strongly enough. Please check out their backgrounds and hire them, if they'll have you! There are intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for this outcome, and I've shared much more detail privately with our investors and team members. But this is a LinkedIn post, so I'm trying to keep it reasonably brief. Intrinsically: we faced a lack of traction (partly because we couldn't transact without the very regulatory approval we were raising funds to clear); perceived regulatory uncertainty; and an increasingly stale deal, especially as time went on. Extrinsically: the collectibles market is insanely challenging right now. We've seen shutdowns of far better-financed companies in the space; several of our competitors are in the midst of brutally difficult recapitalizations; and the financial difficulties at Sotheby's are no secret, sending shock waves across the sector earlier this year. On top of that, we are facing global uncertainty unprecedented in decades. Regardless of the conditions, though, the ultimate responsibility rests with me, which has made this all the harder to face, accept, and communicate. I've let our investors down, and I've let our team down. I've never failed out loud before, and to say it has been humbling and difficult is an understatement. All the beautiful hair I had in January is now gone! 🙃 Well, that was my year - how was yours? One silver lining here might be that many of you will use this as an opportunity to reach out and let me know how you are doing. Onward to 2025! 🫡 | 30 comments on LinkedIn