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About 10 months after Bezar launched as a reincarnation of Fab.com, the shopping site appears close to going out of business.
The e-commerce startup, founded and run by Fab co-founder Bradford Shellhammer, is very close to running out of cash and has been unable to raise a new round of money, three people familiar with the discussions told Re/code. The most likely outcome, they said, is that Bezar closes up shop. Bezar raised $2.25 million early last year from a long list of investors including Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Sherpa Ventures and First Round Capital’s Howard Morgan, who sat on the board of Fab.com.
Reached by phone, Shellhammer said he had no comment.
When I spoke to Shellhammer a year ago about Bezar, he described it as his chance to learn from what did and didn’t work at Fab.com, the once-hot, design-driven shopping site where he was chief creative officer. While Fab imploded in part as a result of its addiction to fast growth at all costs, Shellhammer envisioned Bezar as a site that would focus first and foremost on supporting the designers who make the art, home decor, jewelry and accessories that are sold.
The idea was that the site would only highlight products from four designers or emerging brands at any given time, in a type of “flash sale” that would only last a week at most. The once-popular flash sale model, however, has proven difficult to build into a big, sustainable business. Just last week, flash sale pioneer Gilt Groupe sold for just $250 million, which was a fraction of the $1 billion valuation it once held on paper.
In the fall, Bezar became a full-on marketplace, with hundreds of brands setting up their own mini storefronts and setting prices as they saw fit.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
