Texas FinTech Bank GloriFi Shutters as Funding Falls Through

GloriFi, a Texas startup that billed itself as a conservative alternative to “woke” Wall Street firms, is reportedly closing its doors.

The company has laid off most of its workers and informed them it is shutting down, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday (Nov. 21), citing sources close to the matter and internal emails.

In a message to employees, GloriFi Communications Officer and Chief Marketing Officer Cathy Landtroop said that the funding the company had hoped would get it through its first quarter had fallen through.

The “financial challenges related to startup mistakes, the failing economy, reputational attacks, and multiple negative stories took their toll,” she wrote.

PYMNTS has reached out to GloriFi for comment. The company’s Twitter and Instagram accounts were both down Monday.

In July, GloriFi, which billed itself as “pro-freedom, pro-America, pro-capitalism,” announced plans to go public in a blank check merger worth $1.7 billion.

“Consumers today overwhelmingly want to do business with companies who share their values,” Toby Neugebauer, GloriFi’s founder and CEO, said at the time.

“We believe that this is a vastly underserved market, and our combining unapologetically pro-America values with what we believe is best-in-class technology provides GloriFi with a powerful competitive advantage to lead this exciting growth category.”

However, the company got off to a turbulent start, the Journal report noted. It missed launch dates due to what it says were vendor failures and faulty tech. And employees said Neugebauer’s allegedly fiery temper and the unconventional workspace — the CEO’s house — made for a distracting environment.

GloriFi’s shutdown comes amid a wave of corporate layoffs. Last week saw the online new and secondhand car buying platform Carvana announce it planned to let go of almost 1,500 employees, which represents 8% of its workforce.

Meta Platforms has laid off 11,000 workers, while Amazon recently said it was cutting 10,000 positions. However, Amazon has said the layoffs will continue into next year, beyond the ones that have been announced, as the company’s leaders are only halfway through their annual operating planning review.