Corporate Card Startup Parker Folds After Failed Acquisition

Corporate credit card startup Parker has apparently shut down after declaring bankruptcy.

The company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection last week following a derailed $90 million acquisition deal, according to a social media post from founder Yacine Sibous.

The move comes a little more than three years after Parker came out of stealth and seven years after the company’s graduation from Y Combinator’s (YC) winter 2019 cohort.

While no official closure announcement has come from the company, Sibous posted what appeared to be a eulogy for Parker on X last weekend.

“We went from an idea in YC to processing over $1B in annualized volume, pioneered products that became standard across fintech, and built something I believed could last for decades,” he wrote. “And now it’s over.”

He added while he expects “speculation about why Parker failed,” much of what’s being said online is inaccurate. In the past few years, Sibous wrote, the company has faced turnover in its leadership, a tougher market, slowing growth “and the realities of trying to scale a venture-backed business after momentum fades.”

“Earlier this year, we decided the best path forward was to pursue a sale of the business. We ran a process and spent months working toward a potential acquisition that ultimately did not close,” he added. “After that, things moved quickly.”

A report by TechCrunch points to multiple social media posts saying that Parker’s credit card partner Patriot Bank sent a message to customers confirming the shutdown.

Parker emerged from stealth in 2023, touting a corporate credit card that it said was designed for use by eCommerce companies.

“We want to become the de facto card for profitable eCommerce brands looking to scale,” Sibous said at the time.

Parker’s website was still up and running as of Thursday afternoon and made no mention of a shutdown. Rather, a banner at the top of the homepage links to an announcement from September of 2025, when Parker received $125 million in funding, bringing its total financing to more than $200 million.

In a separate post on LinkedIn — which does not mention the bankruptcy — Sibous touts the company’s fundraising history and the fact that it brought in $65 million in revenue, but also lists things he would do differently.

These included “keep the team small,” “build core infrastructure sooner” and “avoid over-hiring, reactive decisions, and doomsayers.”