Report: BaaS Startup Solid Files for Bankruptcy, Aims to Sell

Solid, the banking-as-a-service (BaaS) startup formerly known as Wise, reportedly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The company had not been able to raise more capital since its August 2022 Series B funding round and faced “significant and costly litigation,” including a lawsuit filed by a Series B investor that attempted to get its money back, TechCrunch reported Wednesday (April 9), citing bankruptcy filings from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

Solid aims to restructure or sell itself, according to the report.

Co-Founder Arjun Thyagarajan told TechCrunch, per the report: “After considering all options, we’ve decided that a voluntary Chapter 11 restructuring is the best course. We’re optimistic that the court-supervised sale process will attract the right buyer, leading to a positive outcome for the company, customers and shareholders. Solid intends to continue operating its business in the ordinary course through this process.”

Solid did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

In its August 2022 funding round, Solid raised $63 million, saying it would use the funding to speed its expansion into new verticals, including travel, logistics, construction, healthcare, education and the gig economy.

The company said its platform enabled companies to launch and scale FinTech products with just modern application programming interfaces (APIs) and a few lines of code.

“We built the most comprehensive [FinTech] infrastructure from the ground up, so others don’t have to,” Thyagarajan said at the time in a press release. “Now, any company can quickly spin up bank accounts, crypto wallets, send payments and issue cards to their end users, right in their product experience, while Solid does the heavy lifting of building and maintaining compliant [FinTech] infrastructure.”

In September 2023, a lengthy report published by FinTech Business Weekly accused Solid of falsifying its revenue numbers to woo investors.

The report said that Solid’s board named a special committee to investigate as investor FTV Capital considered further legal action to recover its investment, and that Solid was also being sued by BSI Group LLC and International Business Solutions Group, which accused the company and other defendants of fraud, negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.