Exclusive: Fintech startup Cushion shuts down after 8 years and over $20 million in funding 

Cushion, a fintech startup that described itself as the “Plaid for buy now, pay later (BNPL),” has shut down.On Thursday, founder and CEO Paul Kesserwani posted on LinkedIn about the decision to wind down the company at the end of 2024.In the post, Kesserwani said that “despite bringing multiple new fintech products to market,” Cushion “didn’t reach the scale needed to sustain the business.”Founded in late 2016, San Francisco-based Cushion had raised a total of $21.6 million from investors such as Afore Capital, Flourish Ventures, Vesigo Ventures, Better Tomorrow Ventures and 500 Global. Its last publicly-announced raise was in May, 2022 when it closed a $12 million Series A led by Afore Capital. Its post-money valuation in 2022 was $82.4 million, according to PitchBook.Kesserwani did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.Cushion offered a consumer app that sucked in the transaction history from its users’ bank accounts, determined what fees had been assessed and then conducted negotiations on their behalf to get a refund. It was designed, Kesserwani told TechCrunch in 2019, to be incentive-aligned with consumers by only taking a commission on any returned cash.Kesserwani got the idea for Cushion after leaving his job at Twitter. While taking some time off to think about what he wanted to do next, he was helping his parents manage their bank accounts while they were traveling for work in Lebanon. Due to bank security policies, his parents weren’t able to log into their accounts from Lebanon, and eventually, they faced a mountain of banking fees as their accounts went unattended. As Kesserwani investigated, he turned to his own accounts, and realized he had also been paying fees to the tune of $400 that he had no memory of agreeing to.In Thursday’s LinkedIn post, Kesserwani said that Cushion had automated bank fee negotiation and reached $3 million ARR in 10 months and processed over $300 million in BNPL loans. He added that the company had onboarded over 1 million consumers over time, with over 200,000 paying customers.Wrote Kesserwani: “I gave Cushion everything I had for 8+ years. While the outcome wasn’t what we hoped for, we built something that moved the industry forward — and I’m proud of that. As for me, I’m excited for what’s next.”Data suggests that 2025 is expected to be another brutal year for startup shutdowns. In late December, another fintech – Bench – shut down abruptly only to be acquired days later.